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OUTLINES OF CHURCH HISTORY 



FOR THE USE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 
IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PRINCETON. 



JAMES C. MOFFAT, 

HELENA PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY. 



From the birth of Christ to A. 2>. 1648, 




PRINCETON: 

CHARLES S. ROBINSON, PRINTER. 

1875 



^ 



OUTLINES OF CHURCH HISTORY. 



KELIGIOUS STATE OF THE WORLD AT THE APPEARANCE OF 

CHRIST. 

Jesus, who is called the Christ, was born in Judea, 
shortly before the death of Herod I., which took place 
between March 13th and April 4th, in the year 750 TJ. C. 
The birth of Jesus could not have been later than two 
or three months before that event; it may have been 
earlier by one, or even two years. Our common era 
assumes it to have occurred in 754 U. C, at least four 
years too late. The day of his birth is not determined. 

At that epoch, the state of religion in the west of 
Asia and Europe was one of great depression. Rational- 
ism had separated between faith and intelligence ; east 
of the Indus it had constructed two great philosophical 
religions; west of the Tigris had set up philosophy as a 
substitute for religion, and carried the convictions of the 
greater number of the educated. Confucianism and 
Buddhism, as religions, were accepted by vast multitudes ; 
Greek philosophy did not profess to be religion, and 
scorned the ignorant populace. Between the Indus and 
the Tigris ruled the semi-barbarous Parthian, maintain- 
ing a degenerate Magism. Avestan monotheism was 
almost buried out of sight under that domination. The 
pure faith of the Hebrews was confined to few. 

Everywhere the religious condition of the multitudes, 
to whom philosophy or philosophical religion was inac- 
cessible, was exceedingly degraded. 

All the countries lying around the Mediterranean 
were under one ruler. Rome had within the preceding 
half century united the ruder west of Europe to the 
decaying civilizations on the eastern coasts of that sea. 
Parthian barbarism lay as a barrier between that new 
empire and the culture of the further east. 



Civilization in China and India was bound up in 
their great philosophical religions; in the west it reposed 
upon philosophy; while good order and security were 
maintained by Roman legislation and arms. 

Great facilities for the spread of knowledge were 
furnished by Roman dominion ; by the protection it 
furnished, the freedom of inter-communication which it 
promoted, by one common language of business, and 
one of polite literature. The wisdom and culture of the 
east were easily, through the common heart of Rome, 
extended to the strong but rugged nations of the west. 
And the government of that vast dominion was, at the 
time of the Saviour's birth, in the hands of one man, 
whose policy was peace. 

But there was little hope or enterprise among the 
nations. Their spirit had been crushed. Among the 
wisest heathen a deep despondency prevailed, a sense of 
want, which no earthly possessions could fill. 

Practical morals were at that time among the 
heathen exceeding base, and basest in the highest 
places of society ; not because men did not know the 
difference between right and wrong, but because they 
were without sufficient persuasives to righteousness. 
The example of their gods could be adduced to justify 
or palliate any vice or crime. Their great want was the 
want of a Saviour. 

The Jews were still in possession of their own land, 
but subjects of the Roman Empire, to which they had 
recently been annexed. Jews of pure descent occupied 
chiefly the southern part of the country ; Samaritans the 
middle, and Galileans the north, both being of mixed 
descent; and the eastern side of Jordan, divided into 
Iturea, Trachonites, and Perea was also held by a hetero- 
geneous population. 

Pure Jews were of three religious sects; Pharisees, 
who were ritualists; Sadducees, rationalists; andEssenes, 
who were Ascetics. Moreover, Jews were then resident 
in almost every nation : and in their synagogues the 
scriptures of promise were read. Among both Jews 
and gentiles there prevailed an expectancy of some great 
personage about to appear with blessing to mankind. 



CHRIST. 

The Saviour was of pure Hebrew genealogy but made 
bis residence chieliy among the half gentiles of Galilee. 
His public ministry commenced with his baptism, when 
he was about thirty years of age, and extended to about 
three years and three months. 

The social condition in which he was born was lowly. 
and yet, as both his mother and foster father were de- 
scended of the ancient Kings of Judea, he was a son of 
David according to the flesh. 

Historically, Christ appeared as a teacher, in the 
crowning period of ancient learning and culture. Some 
things in his teaching w^ere peculiar to himself. 

1. He did not present what he taught as conclusions 
which he had arrived at; neither as things discovered, 
nor as certified by thinking in reference to them, but 
purely as revelation. 

2. He did not reveal as having learned from some 
higher intelligence, but as speaking of bis own original 
knowledge. 

3. His method was of great breadth, calling in the 
exercise of all faculties of the human mind, and never 
seeking to simplify by sinking one faculty in another. 

4. His instructions have eminently the mark of 
holiness. 

II. As to their substance, his lessons contained intel- 
ligence from the councils of God; touching the nature 
of God's existence, his designs for man, and some of his 
dealings with higher beings. 

2. They laid open the whole plan of redemption : 
and the love of God to man. 

3. They taught the purest, most summary and most 
effectual principles of morals ; and the way whereby 
man is to be accepted as holy with God : and of Jesus 
himself that he was the sacrifice for sin, the mediator of 
a new covenant and the eternal Son of God. 

III. Je3us addressed the understanding of men, but 
demanded of his followers first of all an act of the heart: 
namely, that they should trust in him and love him and 
one another. And his teaching has been accompanied 



with a power to go directly to the heart and change 
the state of its affections. Thereby, notwithstanding its 
depth and height, it is adapted to all grades of capacity. 
IT. The operation and effect of his teaching are 
found in practice to be what he said they would be. 

V. His miracles, his death and resurrection were 
essential to his instructions, as well as parts of what he 
came to do, and all, taken together, make a consistent 
whole, which is the Gospel. 

His last commission to his disciples was to teach all 
nations. The progress of that teaching among men is 
the history of the church. 

VI. Christ presented himself as the subject of his 
gospel, and the teacher of its doctrines; but assigned to 
his disciples, under the Holy Spirit, the task of organiz- 
ing their own society— which is the church. Of that 
the beginning was the descent of the Holy Spirit on the 
day of the first Pentecost after the ascension. 

CHURCH HISTORY. 

The History of the Christian Church since that date 
is divided, in view of its own progress, into four great 
periods. The first is that of Apostolic history, in the 
end of which the church ceased to enjoy the presence 
and counsels of inspired men who had seen the Lord. 
Second is that which ended in conferring upon Christians 
external supremacy in the Roman empire, extending 
from about the beginning of the second century until 
the year 324 A. D. The third is that of union with the 
state, and bondage to the rule of legalism within the 
pale of the church, and extends until the first successful 
efforts for liberation, in and about 1517 A. D. 

This long period contains others of great importance, 
as that which was marked by the Nestorian schism in 
431 A. D.; that which determined the separation of the 
great group of Monophysite churches, in 553 A. D. ; 
the terrible loss to the churches of the east and south 
in the first Mohammedan invasions, which began in 
632 A. D., and the separation of the church into the 
eastern and western in the year 1054. 



The fourth great period is that of the general conflict 
for and against the free publication of the Gospel, and 
its sole authority in the church ; which is still going on. 

Upon more minute inspection, we shall find it neces- 
sary to divide each of our periods into several subordi- 
nate sections, on the same principle, but drawn more 
closely from operations of the inner life of Christians. 

FIRST PERIOD. 

Apostolic History consists of five sections, marked 
by their respective steps of progress in the publication 
of the Gospel ; namely, organization of the church in 
Jerusalem; preaching the Gospel to the Samaritans 
and elsewhere in Palestine ; first mission to the gentiles ; 
the overthrow of Jewish nationality, and the completing 
of the sacred canon, and death of the last inspired 
teacher. 

1. 

The first began with the day of Pentecost and closed 
with the death of Stephen. In it were witnessed the 
descent of the Holy Spirit, and the transforming effect 
upon the character of the Apostles, the sermon of Peter, 
with the addition of three thousand to the number of 
the believers in that one day. All the Christians resided 
at that time in Jerusalem. They formed one society, 
and had all things in common. At first their temporal 
as religious affairs were conducted by the apostles ; by 
the appointment of deacons the apostolic form pf the 
church was completed. The Christians of that time 
were Jews, or Jewish proselytes, and thought that the 
Gospel belonged only to the children of Abraham. The 
apostles were endowed with supernatural gifts for the 
planting of the church in its worship, government and 
instruction. 

For a meeting of the whole, they used the court of 
the temple, but they also met in separate bodies, as 
occasion required, in synagogues and in private houses; 
and the synagogue, not the temple, furnished the basis 
of their worship and government. In the sense of a 
common organization, they were one church ; in the 



sense of congregations, they were sometimes several. 
Provision for the poor among them was accepted as a 
duty, and those who had property contributed freely to 
the wants of the rest. 

Enemies arrayed themselves against the church from 
the first ; the Sadducees because they preached the re- 
surrection, and the Pharisees on the ground of disorder. 
The caution and tolerance recommended by Gamaliel 
prevailed for a time in the council. But persecution 
broke out again with great severity upon the death of 
Stephen, and the members of the church were scattered 
abroad. 

2. 

The dispersion was at first through the regions of 
Judea and Samaria, but very soon it extended also to 
the Gentiles. The apostles lingered longer in Jerusalem, 
making that city the centre of operations. Philip, the 
evangelist, was the first to carry the Gospel to Samari- 
tans. From Jerusalem two apostles Peter and John 
were sent to inquire into that work, and being satisfied 
with reality of the conversions, rejoiced together with 
their fellow apostles, in such a way as shows that the 
fact was more than they had expected. Peter's experi- 
ence in the case of Cornelius prepared them for preach- 
ing the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Roman Centurion 
was received into the church by profession of faith and 
baptism. Acts x. 44-48; xv. 6-11. A new apostle was 
next called for the express purpose of preaching to the 
Gentiles. Paul's conversion occurred in or about the 
year 37. After having preached in Damascus, he spent 
some time in Arabia, visited Jerusalem, and returned to 
his native city Tarsus. 

Meanwhile some of the dispersed came to Antioch 
and preached to the Greeks, and a great number believed. 
Hearing of that, the apostles at Jerusalem sent Barna- 
bas to visit Antioch, who when he had come and had 
seen the grace of God was greatly rejoiced; and going 
to Tarsus he found Paul, and brought him to Antioch, 
where they both labored for a whole year. In that great 
city, where strict Jews with their Hellenistic brethren, 



and Heathen, with proselytes to Judaism, lived in close 
neighborhood, the views of the disciples were further 
enlightened touching the liberality of the Gospel. Con- 
sequently Antioch was the place where the disciples were 
first regarded as other than a Hebrew sect, and first 
received name Christian. 

The church which in the first of these two brief 
periods was but one community, was in the second dis- 
persed and formed into many. Jewish exclusiveness in 
the minds of the disciples was overcome so far as to 
admit of preaching the gospel to Samaritans and Gen- 
tiles. But all were still expected to submit to Jewish 
rites. 

The rapid increase of the number of believers was a 
fact which most deeply impressed the writer of their 
early history. He recurs to it in different connections. 

The creed of the church was contained in the simple 
apostolic injunction, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
and thou shalt be saved. 

It was in the latter years of the Emperor Tiberius 
that the church was formed in Jerusalem. The begin- 
ning of its dispersion took place perhaps in the 22nd 
year of that reign. The second period lasted through 
the reign of Caligula and to the fourth year of Claudius. 
In 41 Herod Agrippi was elevated by Claudius to be 
king of all Palestine. He died in 44 A. D. The 
country was again treated as a province, and governed 
from Rome. 



In the history of the apostolic church the third sec- 
tion extends from the first regularly appointed mission 
to the Gentiles, about the year 45, until the arrival of 
Taul at Rome, in A. D. 61. 

After the Jews, the first opponents whom Christianity 
met in argument were the Greeks, keen and logical, and 
it became of importance for its preachers to be versed in 
that learning from which those opponents drew their 
arguments. Jews alone were yet systematically arraj^ed 
against the gospel. Antioch furnished a refuge for the 
disciples where the}- were safe from that persecution, and 



a favorable center of operations among the heathen. A 
short time subsequent to the year 44, most likely in 45 
A. D. a number of pious men, prophets and teachers 
residing at Antioch, as they ministered to the Lord and 
fasted, were directed by the Holy Spirit to set apart Bar- 
nabas and Saul to the work of missions among the Gen- 
tiles. So when they had fasted and prayed and laid their 
hands upon the missionaries, they sent them away. The 
gospel was preached in every direction from Jerusalem; 
but this, the most important of apostolic missions was 
addressed to the heart of the highest civilization. 

The missionaries were well qualified for their task. 
Both of pure Hebrew blood, they were both natives of 
Greek countries, and had enjo} T ed both Greek and Hebrew 
culture. From Antioch they proceeded to Seleucia, took 
ships to Cyprus, visited the cities Salamis and Paphos, 
in the latter of which the Roman Proconsul, Sergius 
Paul us was converted, and the name of the apostle 
ceases to be Saul, and becomes Paul. Thence they sailed 
to the coast of Asia Minor. Here John Mark who 
attended them from Antioch forsook them and returned. 
Landing at Atalia they proceeded through Pamphylia to 
Antioch in Pisidia. Thence eastward to Iconium, then 
to Lystra and to Derbe. At Lystra they with difficulty 
restrained the people from offering them worship, until 
the Jews stirred up opposition to them. From Derbe 
they retraced their steps to Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, 
Perga, and Atalia, and thence to Antioch in Syria. 
There they.reported to the church what God had wrought 
by them ; and abode a long time with the disciples. 

Then arose a controversy about what was to be done 
with heathen converts, whether it was, or was not neces- 
sary for them to be circumcised and keep the law of 
Moses. As some persons from Judrea disturbed the 
church in Antioch by arguing the affirmative of that 
question, it was resolved that Paul and Barnabas and 
certain others should go to Jerusalem and consult 
the apostles and elders. In Jerusalem the controversy 
was also warm. Certain Pharisees who had become 
christian were very earnest for retaining the law. In the 
meeting which took place there was difference of opinion; 



9 

but after Paul and Barnabas and Peter had spoken, re- 
counting what God had done for Gentiles through them, 
James proposed a resolution which was agreed to, that 
Gentile converts should abstain from meats offered to 
idols, from blood, from things strangled and from forni- 
cation, and that beyond this no other burden should be 
imposed upon them. Silas and Judas Barnabas were 
appointed to accompany Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, 
and communicate the message which they also carried 
in writing. 

Still this was not complete emancipation from Legal- 
ism. The whole ministry of Paul was needed to effect 
that, by demonstrating that salvation is by faith in Christ 
alone, and that the believer is no longer under the law, 
but under grace. The meeting, or council at Jerusalem 
occurred in the year 50 or 51 A. D., most probably the 
former. 

Soon afterward Paul and Barnabas undertook another 
missonary tour, but did not go together. Barnabas took 
Mark as his companion and went to Cyprus; Paul took 
Silas, and went through Northern Syria, round the gulf 
of Issus iuto Cilicia, confirming the churches. Thence 
to Derbe, Lystra and Iconium. stations on his former 
tour; then through Phrygia and Galatia to Mysia. At 
Troas he had a vision of a man of Macedonia, saying 
" come over into Macedonia, and help us." Accordingly 
he and his companions sailed over to Neapolis, the sea- 
port of Philippi. In that city after being imprisoned, 
miraculously delivered, the conversion of the jailor, and 
vindication of their own character as Roman citizens, 
the missionaries planted a church, and proceeding south- 
ward visited Thessalonica and Bergea. Thence meeting 
with opposition from Jews, Paul went to Athens, then 
to Corinth, where his companions, left at Bergea, came 
to him. After laboring about eighteen months there, he 
sailed to Ephesus, then to Csesarea in Palestine, then to 
Jerusalem to observe the Pentecost, and returned to 
Antioch in course of the Summer. 

Paul's third missionary' tour was entered on in 
Autumn of same year in which he returned from the 
second. It pursued nearly the same course, but more 



10 

time was spent in Phrygia and Galatia, and its direction 
was through Proconsular Asia to Ephesus. In that city 
Paul remained nearly three years, so that all the inhabi- 
tants of the province heard the word of the Lord Jesus. 
In the year 57 he proceeded by way of Troas to Mace- 
donia and in the Winter visited Corinth, spent three 
months there and in the vicinity. Next Spring he set 
forth on his return by way of Macedonia ; thence across 
the ^Egean sea to Troas ; then from point to point down 
the Asiatic coast to Miletus where he had his last inter- 
view with the elders of Ephesus ; then, by way of Rhodes 
and Patara, to Tyre, to Ptolemais and Caesarea, and 
finally to Jerusalem. 

At Jerusalem a violent Jewish party charged him 
with teaching even Jews abroad to disregard the laws of 
Moses, and stirred up a mob, from which Paul was 
rescued by the Roman officer in command of the garrison 
in the city. This led to his trial before Felix, Festus 
and Agrippa and his appeal to Caesar. At Caesarea he 
was kept a prisoner during the whole of the year 59, and 
the greater part of the next. Late in the Autumn of A. 
D. 60, he was sent to Rome, but was delayed until the 
Winter set in. In crossing the Ionian sea he suffered 
shipwreck, was constrained to spend three months on 
the island of Malta, and did not reach Rome until the 
Spring of A. D. 61. 

The officer who had charge of Paul and the other 
prisoners, treated him with great courtesy and indul- 
gence. At Rome, he was received with similar consid- 
eration, and was suffered to dwell two years in a house 
hired by himself, freely preaching the gospel to all who 
visited him. 

Paul's efforts had been addressed chiefly to the great 
seats of government and moral influence. Antioch was 
his starting point, and the scenes of his most prolonged 
labors, besides that city, were Philppi, Ephesus, Corinth 
and Rome. 

The companions of Paul in his missionary labor were 
in his first journey, Barnabas all the way, and Mark as 
far as Perga; on his second, Silas, and from Lystra, 
Timothy, and at least part of the way, Luke ; on his 



11 

third, Luke, Titus and Timothy. Aquila and Priscilla, 
Apollos and others were also associated with him briefly 
at different times and places. 

His epistles were written chiefly between A. D. 52 
and 63, at Corinth, at Ephesus and at Rome. 

A tradition represents Paul as liberated after his first 
trial, as making extensive missionary tours, revisiting 
Ephesus, Macedonia and Miletus, and extending his 
labors to Nicopolis, to Crete and to Spain. In the year 
preceding the death of Nero, it is said he was again in 
Rome, having been arrested a second time, and suffered 
death by beheading in that year. Those who believe in 
a second imprisonment of Paul refer to it the writing of 
the pastoral epistles. 

4. 

The succeeding section of Apostolic history extends 
from the beginning of Paul's imprisonment in Rome to 
the destruction of Jerusalem : — from A. D. 61 to 70. 

After the meeting at Jerusalem, the history of the 
other apostles is invo'ved in obscurity. After that occa- 
sion we read of Peter at Antioch, and in his own epistle 
at Babylon. Although the door was opened to the gentiles 
through the agency of Peter, his vocation was not to 
them, but to the Jews. The testimonies adduced to 
sustain the assertion that he was Bishop of Rome, are 
feeble and contradictory in themselves, and utterly incon- 
sistent with all the scripture that touches the subject. 

Of the other apostles our knowledge is still more 
scanty, and chiefly apocryphal. They are said to have 
preached the gospel in Arabia, in Ethiopia, in Egypt, in 
Parthia, in Persia, in India and in Scythia. The great 
fact, which there is no reason to question, is that churches 
were planted in all the leading countries adjoining on the 
Mediterranean sea, and in the direction in which their 
civilization was advancing. 

The church accepted its generic form within the time 
of Paul. To that end the chief actors were Peter, Paul 
and James. The apostles had their place exterior to the 
working system of the church, and were not included 
under it. They were appointed by Christ and miracu- 



12 

lously qualified for the special and temporary service 
which they performed. 

The early christian church grew up from elements 
contained in the Jewish synagogue, both as respects gov- 
ernment and worship. The elders, who were the rulers, 
the reader and speaker and minister or attendant were 
the office bearers of the synagogue. And the exercises 
consisted of prayer, reading of the Word, exposition and 
exhortation, with chanting of Psalms and concluded with 
the pronunciation of a blessing. All the churches were 
constituted on the same model and were of co-ordinate 
authority. None assumed supremacy over the rest, 
though Jerusalem first, and then Antioch, was the most 
influential. Before the death of Paul, the christian 
church consisted of a great number of such communities 
all professing the same faith and loving the same 
Redeemer and one another. 

The publication of the gospel was first made by oral 
address. A literature however was ordained also and 
grew up by degrees. The canonical books except those 
of John, were probably all written before the close of 
this section of time. 

When Paul finished his labors, the freedom of the 
gospel had been fully vindicated; but there was a party 
in the church which still advocated compliance with some 
parts of the ceremonial law. The great controversy of 
the apostolic period was over this question. Paul was 
on one side and Peter was claimed by the moderate 
advocates on the other. On either side the extremes ran 
out into heresy. 

The animosity of unconverted Jews and of the Jew- 
ish authorities towards christians of all parties was 
unrelenting. But their power was drawing near its end. 
A heathen enemy had already begun his career. 

The events now mentioned took place under the 
emperors Claudius, and Nero. The last came to the 
throne in A. D. 54. In the tenth year of his reign, a 
large part of Rome was burned, by design or accident is 
not certain. But the blame was laid on the emperor ; 
And he to avert the obloquy from himself, charged it on 
the christians. We have no reason to believe that he 



13 

concerned himself about the faith of christians, but he 
could direct popular rage against them with impunity. 

In the latter years of Nero's reign, an insurrection in 
Judea led to the removal thither of a large body of 
Roman troops. An obstinate resistance changed the 
movement into a war. On the part of the Romans it 
was conducted by Vespasian and his son Titus. In the 
midst of the war Nero, last of the Cresars, came to his 
miserable and merited end, (June 11, A. D. 68.) 

The imperial throne was now an object of ambition 
open to all the heads of the military force. The Pre- 
torian Guards at Rome, the army of the west in Spain, 
that of the northwest, in Gaul and on the Rhine claimed, 
each for themselves, the right of putting their respective 
generals into the place of honor. And Galba, Otho and 
Vitellius were successively elevated to the throne and 
dragged from it, in the space of a year and a half. Soon 
after the last of the three was elevated to the now dan- 
gerous office. Vespasian also put in his claim. The 
arm}' in Judea he left under command of Titus ; that of 
Illyricum was sufficient for his own purpose. It was 
already near the scene of strife, took up his cause, and 
won his victories before his arrival. The empire was 
waiting for his acceptance. And thus the Flavian family 
(Dec. 20th, 69,) became the successor of the Julian. 

With Vespasian a new style of government opened. 
For the good of the state his days were filled with busi- 
ness. His industry and economy were even more than 
the Romans of that age could rightly estimate. During 
that reign from 70 to 79 A. D., Christians, like all other 
orderly subjects enjoyed the protection of a government 
which interfered not with their religious opinions. 

Meanwhile Titus, in command of the army in Judea, 
after overcoming a resistance of unsurpassed obstinacy, 
took Jerusalem by storm (Sept. 2, 70 A. D.) Its walls 
and houses, and, much to the regret of Titus, its beauti- 
ful temple, were levelled with the ground. The Jews 
as a nation were completely reduced. A portion of them 
remained in the land between sixty and seventy years 
longer, after which in another rebellion, they were finally 
broken and their fragments scattered to the ends of the 
earth. 



14 

Their national centre was now lost, and their power 
to injure the christians greatly reduced, but dispersed as 
they were in far separate societies their hostility never 
abated until it became dangerous to themselves to indulge 
it. And ere that time they had accumulated for their 
posterity an inheritance of vengeance, which is not all 
exhausted to the present day. 

The Mosaic economy virtually abolished by the death 
of Christ, was now practically terminated, and the sac- 
rifice and oblation ceased. 

5. 

From the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70, to the 
death of the Apostle John, the church parsed through 
another stage of progress, apostolic chiefly, and towards 
the last, solely by the presence of the beloved disciple. 

A new generation was now growing up in the church, 
and ere the end of this period the mass of believers con- 
sisted of those who had been born within christian 
families. 

The clemency of Vespasian's reign was continued 
in that of Titus, and the churches enjoyed freedom, in 
as far as the government was concerned. But when in 
A. D. 81, Domitan, a younger son of Vespasian came to 
the throne, the work of persecution received imperial 
sanction. Among others Flavius Clemens and his wife 
Domitilla, kindred of the emperor, suffered. Through 
Jewish misrepresentation Doniitian wa6 made to believe 
that the aim of the christians was to put the successors 
of Jesus on the throne. He relaxed his severity upon 
discovering that the surviving kinsmen of Jesus were 
poor peasants without political ambition or desires. 
Persecution of christians however continued on the 
ground of Atheism, that ie rejection of all the gods of 
heathen worship. Nerva, ascending the throne in A. D. 
96, repealed the persecuting edicts of Domitian ; but took 
no steps to legalize Christianity, and give it a right to 
governmental protection. At the end of two years he 
was succeeded by Trajan, a wise ruler, but severe, by 
whom although persecution was limited, it was within 
those limits sanctioned. 



After the Jewish wars began, the apostle John removed 
to Proconsular Asia, took up his residence at Ephesus. 
and preached in several cities in that province. He 
addresses its seven churches with the authority of a 
special commission. Under Domitian, he was ban- 
ished for a time to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote 
the book of Revelation. His gospel was written after 
the other three, and while he resided at Ephesus. His 
epistles have the color of the same period, adapted rather 
to fan the love of those brought up as christians than to 
instruct converts from heathenism or Judaism ; and the 
faults he reproves are not of a nature incident to new 
churches 

Disturbers of the peace of the church, and of the 
faith of believers had already formed themselves into 
sects of greater or smaller numbers. Some taught that 
the end of the world was near, and looked for an early 
appearance of the Lord. The Docetae held that Christ 
had no real body, others that he was only a man ; at 
Ephesus under the very presence of the apostle, Cerin- 
thus the Gnostic taught his wild opinions; and the 
Mcolaitans had such footing at Pergamus that the Holy 
Spirit, through John, administered a reproof for that 
cause. 

John lived to an advanced age, and died in the reign 
of Trajan, about the close of the first century, and at 
Ephesus, to which he had returned after the death of 
Domitian. His teaching did not turn upon legal con- 
formity or the doctrine of faitk, but upon christian love, 
and spiritual union with Christ. It was needful that the 
gospel should be presented in all three views, as obe- 
dience, faith and love. Balanced, as they are in Scrip- 
ture, they properly sustain one another. But the last 
comprehends the other two. Exposition of the more 
comprehensive principle was the final work of revelation. 

Christianity was first planted in cities. And as all 
the converts of one city made only one church, the 
largest churches were those of the large cities. Most 
eminent at the end of the first century were those as- 
sembled in Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth and Rome. That 
eminence was greatly due to the importance of the cities. 



16 

But in no case was authority over the other churches 
recognized as residing in them. 

The episcopal succession in Antioch begins with 
Evodius, and the second bishop was Ignatius; in Rome 
it begins with Linus, and the second was Anacletus, and 
the third Clement. Most of the churches of those days 
claimed to have been planted by an apostle, but for 
none of them do we find it said in earliest tradition that 
an apostle was the bishop. 

Notwithstanding the rise of heresies, the faith of the 
church in general was still of a uniform standard, and 
means were in use for the propagation and maintenance 
of christian knowledge. The canonical books of the 
New Testament received by the church without question 
were the four gospels, the acts of the apostles by Luke, 
the epistles bearing the name of Paul, to the number of 
thirteen, with the first epistle of Peter and first of John. 
But, for a time, there were some churches which doubted 
concerning the epistle of James, the second of Peter, 
the second and third of John and that of Jude. The 
Apocalypse was accepted from its first appearance. 
Subsequently its authenticity was questioned by some 
parties in the chiliast controversy. Respecting the epistle 
to the Hebrews, there was question only of its author- 
ship. These apostolic writings were publicly read in the 
meetings of christians, and placed together with Old 
Testament Scripture. 

The scrupulousness of the earty christians which gave 
rise to those doubts, was due to the existence of certain 
other books, in some respects good and well meaning, 
but of no apostolic authority. 

The day on which the Lord arose was a solemn and 
memorable day to the disciples. On that day week they 
were again assembled, when the Lord appeared among 
them. Subsequently mention is made of the first day of 
the week, as that on which the disciples " met together 
to break bread," (Acts xx. 7,) and by the Apostle John 
mention is made of the Lord's day, Rev. i. 10. Jewish 
Christians observed also the annual festival of Pentecost. 
And in some places exercises of public as well as private 
worship were observed daily. 



17 

Worship consisted of prayer, reading of Scripture, 
preaching, and singing of Psalms and Hymns and spirit- 
ual songs. The music was entirely vocal. 

It does not appear that the apostles and elders wore 
any peculiar vestments when conducting divine service. 

The places used for social worship were, in the first 
instance, synagogues, but also, and perhaps most com- 
monly, private houses. 

Of sacraments the early christians had only two, 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper. 

The ordinary ministers in sacred office were elders, in 
the first instance ordained by the apostles, or evangelists, 
(Acts xiv. 23. Titus ii. 2,) with the concurrence of the 
church over which they were set (Clement, 1 Epistle to Cor. 
44), and evidence that they were called by the 
Holy Spirit, (Acts 20: 28.) The form was laying on 
of hands by the Apostles or bv the Presbvterv, (1 Tim. 
4: 14.) 

From the corrupt morals of the age, to which the 
first christian converts had been more or less accustomed, 
the exercise of church discipline was necessarily strict, 
yet it was ordered by the apostles to be laid on with the 
Tenderness of brethren, (2 Thes. 3 : 14, 15. Titus 3: 10. 
2 Cor. 2 : 7.) The christian was to be holy, as becom- 
ing him in whom dwells the Spirit of God. 1 Cor. 3 : 
16, 17. 

SECOND PERIOD. 

1. 

At the death of the Apostle John, about the year 100, 
we come to the dividing line between revelation and the 
work of preserving what has been revealed. So far the 
church has bf^en instructed by inspired teachers, now she 
is to rely upon the ordinary means. Still, for a few 
years the personal influence of the apostles lingered in 
the lives of persons who had enjoyed their society. The 
next most interesting group in the history of the church 
is that of the Apostolic Fathers, eminently gifted men 
who had been disciples of some of the apostles, among 
whom the most important were Clement of Rome, Bar- 
nabas, Hermas, Ignatius, Papias and Polycarp. Of their 



18 

writings we have a general epistle by Barnabas, an epistle 
to the Corinthians by Clement, a book by Hernias, which 
he calls the shepherd, several epistles ascribed to Igna- 
tius, and an epistle of Polycarp to the church at Philippi. 
Other writings are ascribed to some of them, but deemed 
spurious. Quite a number of books also are extant, 
as if from the first and second centuries, which 
ure grouped under the general name Apocryphal. To 
none of these, the genuine works of the Apostolic 
Fathers, any more than the apocryphal, did the early 
church, or any part of it attach a value equal to the writ- 
ings of the apostles. 

According to tradition, Clement died in A. D. 102, 
Ignatius suffered martyrdom in the amphitheatre at Rome 
in* 115, Papias survived until 163, and Polycarp died the 
death of a martyr in 167 or 169. 

The doctrines upon which those teachers insisted 
most, were the deity of Jesus, his equality with the 
Father, his vicarious suffering, the remission of sins 
through his blood, the depravity of man, justification by 
faith in Christ and obedience to his instructions. Some 
in their doctrine, as Clement, Hernias and Barnabas fol- 
low the example of Paul, and others, as Ignatius and 
Polycarp that of Peter 

The great theological question was the person of 
Christ. On that the extreme doctrines were those of the 
Docetae, on one hand, and of the Ebionities, on the 
other, while Gnostics wove it, according to their fancies, 
into the speculations of their philosophy. 

Extraordinary offices in the church had now ceased. 
It became necessary to rely upon those of Presbyter 
and Deacon ; which already began to be subdivided in 
some churches. There was no higher rank in the church 
than the Presbyter. And each church, with its session 
of Presbyters, administered its own government without 
subordination to any ecclesiastical superior. A Pres- 
byter was so called from the custom of the synagogue, 
the name being only the Greek word for elder; but by 
the Greeks he was also called an overseer, emaxoTioi; , 
from which Bishop is an English derivative, the former 
being a title of rank, and the latter a designation of 
office. 



19 

Deacons, originally appointed to distribute alms and 
relieve the apostles of secular duties, took care of the 
poor and sick, and discharged other offices standing 
between the church and the world. 

These were the only ordinary officers of the primitive 
church. Knowledge of this fact was retained anion % 
christians long after its simplicity had been practically 
abandoned. It was defended as historical b}* Hilary of 
Rome in the 4th century, by Jerome in the 5th, by 
Isidore of Seville, in the 7th, by Anseim in the 11th, by 
Peter Lombard in the 12th, and others, until after the 
revival of learning in the 14th, it became again more 
commonly recognized. 

At tirst all the presbyters of a church were bishops ; 
but on any occasion of public worship, one of them 
necessarily presided. Eor each to have taken his turn 
would have best preserved their equality. But from that 
method they early departed, for one reason or another, 
yielding the duty of presiding to oue of their number, 
who thereby became more specially the overseer, or 
bishop of the congregation. In course of time it was 
thought expedient to determine the rule that there should 
be only one bishop in one church. This change took 
place, of course, gradually, and in some churches sooner 
than in others. It manifests itself in the course of the 
second century. 

Church extension proceeded in apostolic times by the 
method of planting each new congregation as a separate 
church, competent to its own government, after the 
model constituted everywhere by the apostles. But 
when the churches of the great cities began to expand, 
and new congregations to proceed from them, another 
method, that of branch churches, was gradually gene- 
rated. 

In the beginning of this period the emperor Trajan 
was on the throne, and reigned until 117. He was suc- 
ceeded by Hadrian, from 117 to 138. Neither of those 
emperors exhibited any animosity against christians, and 
yet within their time christians suffered much at the 
hands of local rulers and the people of certain provinces. 
Priests and other ministers of heathenism were exceed- 



20 

ingly bitter against them, and stirred up the people to 
maltreat them, or prosecuted them before the magis- 
trates, on various false charges. Information touching 
these matters did not always reach the emperor. 

An important contemporaneous testimony from the 
heathen side is the letter of the younger Pliny from 
Bithynia to Trajan. Pliny was governor of Bithynia, 
where Christianity had made great progress, while neither 
legally allowed nor forbidden, and found himself called 
upon, in regard to those charged with professing its faith, 
to act where he had no law. Me had recourse to the 
emperor, stating distinctly the case and what he had been 
able to learn about the christians. In the rescript of 
Trajan, written probably in 104, we have the first 
Roman law intelligently addressed to the subject. It 
instructed Pliny not. to disturb the christians, not to take 
action in regard to them, unless brought before him on 
a definite charge ; but if so accused and convicted they 
were to be punished unless they denied Christ, and were 
willing to adore the Roman gods. (Pliny's Letters, Book 
X. letters 97, 98.) Designed, as that rescript was, to put 
a check upon unjust prosecutions, there is no doubt that 
in the provinces many christians suffered under its sanc- 
tion. 

From the letter of Pliny it appears that christian wor- 
ship, at the beginning of the second century was still 
extremely simple, conducted in Bithynia with a degree 
of secrecy. Their meetings were held very early in the 
morning. Christ was the object of their adoration. 
They observed the Lord's Supper, or the Love Feasts 
frequently : and held themselves under oath to do no 
wrong. They were disposed to submit to the govern- 
ment in all things, not inconsistent with their duty to 
God. But could not be induced by even torture and the 
terrors of death to deny Christ. And their influence 
was vastly greater than their numbers. Throughout 
Bithynia the observances of heathen worship had almost 
ceased; the temples were nearly deserted, and victims 
for sacrifice could scarcely find a purchaser. 

In the reign of Hadrian the heathen populace pro- 
ceeded to such a degree of animosity as to clamor for the 



21 

execution of christians in the arena, as part of the enter- 
tainment at the public festivals. Hadrian issued a rescript 
interdicting such inhuman proceedings. 

Within this period the Jews provoked their final 
reduction. In Gyrene, (A. I). 115) they excited an insur- 
rection, which extended to Egypt and Cyprus. Another 
was raised by them in Mesopotamia. Another in 132, 
under their leader Bar Cochab, attempted to expel the 
Romans from Palestine. In the war whereby that insur- 
rection was put down, Palestine was, in 135, reduced 
almost to a desert. Jews were forbidden to visit the 
ruins of Jerusalem on pain of death. Only once a year, 
on the anniversary of its destruction, were they permitted 
to view the place from a distance. A new town subse- 
quently arose there, and in it a church of gentiles. 

2. 

The next division of this period may be most charac- 
teristically designated as that of the Primitive Apolo- 
gists, in whom, during the middle and latter part of the 
second century, the church had her ablest defenders. 
The productions called apologies w r ere defences of christ- 
ians, written for the purpose of being presented to the 
emperor, or the Roman Senate. When Hadrian upon 
his imperial tour visited Athens in 126, the learnd christ- 
ian Quadratus took occasion to present to him a defense 
of his fellow christians. Another was presented about 
the same time by Aristides. A third was written by 
Agrippa Castor, about 135, against the heresies of Basi- 
lides. All three are lost. The earliest extant work of 
the kind is that of Justin Martyr, addressed to the 
emperor Antoninus Pius, about 139. Another was pre- 
pared by the same author between 161 and 166, to be 
presented to Marcus Anrelius and Lucius Yerus, col- 
leagues on the throne. He also wrote a work called a 
Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, in which he encounters 
the objections from the side of Judaism. 

Justin was a native of Samaria, born of Gentile par- 
ents. He suffered martyrdom at Rome in or about the 
vear 166. 



22 

Tatian, a friend and disciple of Justin, wrote an 
address to the heathen among the Greeks, urging the 
folly and grossness of heathenism, and the purity and 
wisdom of scripture. 

The apology of Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, was 
inscribed to a friend, one Antolycus, who was a heathen, 
but a lover of truth, and presents evidences for christian 
truth, drawn from both scripture and history. 

Athenagoras of Athens also prepared for the emperor 
Marcus Aurelius an argument in defence of the christ- 
ians. 

Irenaeus about 170 wrote his treatise against heresies, 
chiefly the heresies of the gnostics. Such writings 
increased in number towards the end of the century, but 
most of them are no longer extant. Of those which 
remain most valuable is the longer apology of Justin. 
Its topics may be classified under the following heads. 

1. " Appeals to the justice of the ruling powers, and 
expostulations with them on the unfairness of the pro- 
ceedings ngainst christians." 

2. " Refutations of the charges of Atheism, immo- 
rality and of disaffection towards the emperor." 

3. " Direct arguments in proof of the truth of Christ- 
ianity drawu from miracles and prophecy." 

4. Exposure of the baseness and absurdity of poly- 
theism and idolatry, and on the other hand the beneficial 
effects of christian doctrine upon the life of men. 

5. Description of the christian rites, customs and 
manner of life. 

Among the literary opponents, whom the apologists 
had to encounter, were Celsus the Epicurean, Crescens 
the Cynic, and the rhetorician M. C. Fronto, who all 
flourished about the middle of the century. Bitterest 
was Celsus. In a work called the True Account he col- 
lected all the arguments against Christianity, which he 
could urge with any degree of probability. It is now 
known only in the refutation of it by Origen. 

The arguments against Christianity were chiefly, 
1. That Jesus was of low birth, and brought up 
among the ignorant, the vulgar and vicious, and that he 
suffered an ignominious death : 



23 

2. That Christianity was a novelty ; that it had not the 
sanction of any national government; that it had com- 
menced among barbarians, that its facts were incredible, 
and its doctrines absurd, especially those of regeneration 
and the resurrection; that different portions of scripture 
contradicted each other, and that it demanded a blind 
and unreasonable faith. 

3. Christians were charged with Atheism, with the 
worship of a crucified malefactor, with being poor and 
uncultivated, with the crime of creating division in relig- 
ion and society, and of being disloyal to their country 
and to the emperor, with a superstitious spirit, fanatical 
and dismal. 

4. Sometimes also mysteriously awful crimes were 
imputed to them, as that of indiscriminate licentiousness, 
of eating human flesh and blood, of devouring children 
in their religious feasts, and other things equally wild, 
the fictions of alarmed ignorance and heated imagina- 
tions. 

Holding such belief the heathen populace certainly 
thought that they had abundant cause for their deadly 
hatred to the followers of Christ. 

In debate with Jews, the early defenders of the gospel 
found common ground in the Old Testament Scriptures; 
and their aim was to show that the prophecies and types' 
of the Messiah, therein contained, were all fulfilled in 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

With heathen the controversy was partly religious 
and moral, and partly political and social, and had to be 
debated on the ground of admitted moral principle, 
good sense, demonstrable truth and the common rights 
of Roman subjects. It w T as the external morality of 
those early witnesses for the gospel which weighed most 
in their favor, and the change which passed upon wicked 
men when the} T became christian. 

It was when the stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius 
came to the throne, in 161, that persecution received 
imperial direction, and proceeded upon principle and by 
law. 

Commodus, though a worse man than his father, 
proved a more lenient ruler towards the christians. At 



24 

the eurl of the second century their number had vastly 
increased within the empire, though under much oppres- 
sion, and in some places constrained to observe their 
ordinances in secret. 

Concerning the doctrine and worship of christians in 
the second century we learn most from the apologists. 
For the works of their Theologian Arabianus, and of 
their historian Hegesippus, have perished. 

1. They worshipped Christ as God proceeding from 
the Father, not as a holy man, but as the Word made 
ilesh, the Divine nature incarnate. 

2. They believed that the Holy Spirit was one of the 
persons in Godhead, and in conjunction with the Father 
and Son an object of worship. 

3. Of man, they believed that he was created capable 
of choosing right ; but capable also of transgression, and 
that by sinning he fell in Adam. 

4. Justification they assigned entirely to the merits 
of Christ as its ground or cause, and faith they held to 
be the means of acceptance. 

5. They believed in such a degree of human freedom 
that men were accountable for their actions. 

6. They believed in the resurrection of the body, in 
case of both righteous and wicked, the eternal blessed- 
ness of the former, and eternal punishment of the latter. 

But the principal point, discussed with all the philo- 
sophical acumen of the time, was the person of Christ, 
and his place in various theories of good and evil. 

Of the forms of their worship and sacraments we 
learn also some interesting particulars from the same 
sources, especially from Justin. 

1. Of Baptism he writes that it had taken the place 
of circumcision, accordingly it was applied to infants. 

2. It was administered by affusion, by immersion, or 
by sprinkling, in the name of God the Father, the Son 
and the Holy Spirit. Only water was used. No other 
ceremony is mentioned as connected with it. 

3. The day which is called Sunday Justin says was 
kept by them, because on that day of the week the Lord 
Jesus Christ rose from the dead. On that day the people 
in town and country met in their respective places of 
worship. 



25 

(a.) In those meetings the memoirs of the apostles, 
or writings of the prophets were read to such length as 
time permitted. 

(h.) Then the brother who presided delivered a dis- 
course, in which he instructed the people, and exhorted 
them to the imitation of those excellent examples. 

(c.) After that, they all rose togethei , and offered up 
their prayers. 

(d.) After prayer, bread was brought, and wine and 
water. And again the brother who presided ottered up 
prayer and thanksgiving according to his ability, and the 
people expressed their assent by saying 4t Amen." 

Justin makes no mention of singing. But elsewhere 
that element of worship appears with sufficient clearness. 
It was one of the most striking features of christian 
meetings as they were described to Plinv. Where Justin 
worshipped, it seems that the\ celebrated the Lord's 
Supper (dvevy Lord's day. lie describes the administra- 
tion of that ordinance, more particularly. 

1. After the prayer which closed the ordinary ser- 
vices, the people saluted one another with a kiss. 

2. Then to that one of the brethren who presided 
there was brought bread, and a cup of wine mixed with 
water. 

3. And he taking them offered up thanks and praise 
to the Father of all, through the name of the Son and 
of the Holy Ghost. 

4. When he had finished the prayer, and offering of 
thanks, all the people present assented by saying 
" Amen." 

5. Then the Deacons gave to each of those who were 
present to partake of the bread, and of the wine and 
water, and to cany away some for those who were absent. 

6. In that ordinance only those were allowed to par- 
take^who professed their belief in those things which were 
taught in the church, were baptized, and endeavored to 
live as Christ commanded r 

7. The bread Justin speaks of as what Christ had 
commanded to be offered in remembrance of his being 
made flesh, and the cup as that which he commanded to 
be offered in remembrance of his blood. 



26 

8. He does not mention the posture of the communi- 
cants; but from that fact it may be inferred, as well as 
from the statement that the Deacons distributed the ele- 
ments, that it was the same which they occupied when 
listening to the preceding-sermon and reading. For their 
change of posture in prayer he does mention. 

9. After the service, a collection was taken up for the 
poor. 

Besides the Lord's Day, many christians still kept the 
Jewish Sabbath, and the Jewish Christian practice of 
observing certain annual festivals was gradually gaining 
ground among the Gentile churches. It was also com- 
mon to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays. The annual 
commemoration of the Lord's suffering, death and resur- 
rection was also general in the churches both east and 
west. But they differed in the way of observing it. By 
the end of the century a serious controversy arose between 
them on that subject. 

That Period which opened with the accession of Nerva 
A.D. 96, and closed in the death of Marcus An relins (130,) 
was the most prosperous and tranquil in the history of 
imperial Rome. The facilities for publication of the 
gospel, notwithstanding local and occasional persecu- 
tions, were unprecedented. The empire had reached its 
utmost extent, was most of the time in peace, the fear 
or reverence of it was upon all the world, delegates from 
Antoninus went even as far as China, and the wants, 
natural and artificial, of so many great cities made 
demands, which the most distant barbarous nations found 
their profit in supplying. 

When from relying upon the counsel of an inspired 
apostle the church came to employ the judgment of 
uninspired teachers, many difficulties beset her way. 
One of these was philosophical speculation of that style 
which bore the general name of Gnosis. It was not new, 
but reached its maturity in the second century, within 
the time of the Primitive Apologists. 

Christian Gnosticism was a theory of good and evil, 
how they arose, and how they co-exist, and how the per- 
sons of Christ and of the Holy Spirit stand in relation 
to them. Its fundamental elements were. 



27 

1. A screat and holy spirit, eternal, unchangeable 

and infinite, tlie source of all lite and good; but inact- 
ive, — the tranquil reservoir of holiness and power. 

2. The world of matter, existing also from all eternity. 
but inactive, and containing in itself the principles of 
evil. 

3. The union of spirit and matter, which was tem- 
porary, and productive of the natural or imprfeect. 

4. The ruler of the natural world was the Demiurgus, 
or master spirit, who created it by combining the contra- 
dictory elements of spirit and matter. 

5. iSouls of men were rays of light which had come 
from the eternal spirit. In their earthly condition they are 
continually striving to obtain deliverance from fetters of 
the Demiurgus and of matter, and thereby to return into 
the region of the pure and spiritual. 

6. Christ was one of the highest spirits of light, who 
connected himself with the body of Jesus, to assist men 
in effecting that end. 

The various schools of Gnosticism differed from each 
other chiefly in their way of representing the imperfect. 
That of Alexandria effected it by emanations. But 
theories of emanations differed among themselves. 

1. Basilides taught that seven secondary powers 
emanated from God. From these emanated other seven, 
and from these agaiu a third class, and so on, until there 
were three hundred sixty-five kingdoms of spirits, each of 
which possessed a feebler degree of power in goodness 
than the preceding, and the seven angels of the lowest 
heaven came into contact with matter, and their chief 
became the creator of the world, the Demiurgus. 

Men, at so great a distance as they were from God, 
bound up with matter in creation, were inextricably 
involved in darkness and evil. To deliver their souls 
from that bondage, the Xous, the first spirit of the highest 
order, entered the man Jesus, at his baptism, and remained 
connected with him until just before his death. 

2. Valentinus, also an Egyptian, removed about 140 
to Rome. His pltroma was simpler than that of Basilides. 
It consisted of fifteen male and as many female aeons, 
who all emanated from Bythos, the depths of Deity. 



28 

From the last of these proceeded a being called Acha- 
moth, which had no longer power enough to retain its 
place within the Pleronra, and so came into contact with 
matter, and communicating the germ of life thereto, 
formed the Demiurgus or creator of the world. 

Christ and the Holy Spirit were two new aeons, who 
came to restore the disturbed harmony of the Pleroma. 

3. A third branch of Alexandrian Gnosticism was 
that of the Ophites. In their doctrine, the first man, 
the second man, i. e. the son of man, and the Holy 
Spirit emanate separately from Bythus. From the last 
through means of the former two, proceed the perfect 
masculine light-nature, the Christ, and t lie defective 
female nature, Sophia, or wisdom. Sophia sought to 
defeat the oppessive designs of the world creator through 
•the serpent of the first temptation. The office assigned 
to Christ was the same as in the theory of Yalentinus. 

II. Amonor the Gnostics of Syria a simple dualism 
prevailed. Their principal representative, Saturninus of 
Antioch, (between 125 and 150) taught that there was 
an original evil Being, the everlasting antagonist of God, 
and that in accordance with these two powers, both 
active, there are two classes of men, one instigated by 
the evil Being, and the other by the good. 

III. The Gnosticism of Asia Minor is represented 
chiefly by Marcion, a native of Sin ope, who came to 
Kome, and studied with the Gnostic Cerdo, between 140 
and 150. In Marcion's system there are three original 
principles, the holy, the righteous, and the wicked, 
embodied in God, the Demiurgus, and the Devil. As in 
other Gnostic systems, matter is essentially evil. Men 
were under the merely righteous Demiurgus ; and from 
him could expect only justice. To free them from 
hisseverity, Christ took the appearance of abody among 
them, and revealed to them the holy God, and the way 
of obtaining his favor. 

Such fanciful theories admitted of endless diversity 
of treatment. The sect called Ophites lasted longest, 
and were still in existence as late as 530. Gnosticism 
embraced elements of both Ebionism and Docetism, but 
held nearest affinity to the latter. 



29 

About 170. a sect arose in Phrygia, under the teach- 
ing of Montanus of Ardaban. afterwards of Pepuza, 
which held that inspiration of the Holy Spirit consists 
in extraordinary excitement, that Scripture was not com- 
pleted by the apostles, but admitted of further revela- 
tion ; that Montanus and his associates, Maximilla and 
Priscilla, were divinely inspired, and possessed the gift 
of prophesying. They also practised numerous austeri- 
ties, attached great value to celibacy and martyrdom ; 
and proclaimed the end of the world, and the millennial 
reign of Christ to he near at hand. The prophecies of 
Montanus and Ids female associates were in most cases, 
if not all, committed to writing, and esteemed by their 
followers as belonging to Holy Scripture, and completing 
the Christian Revelation. 

Montanists, driven from Asia Minor by persecution, 
found refuge in Northern Africa, where, in the begin- 
ning of the third century, they had an able advocate in 
Tertullian. 

In resisting Montauism another party rushed to an 
opposite extreme, and not only denied the continuance of 
the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, but also the doctrine 
of the divine Logos, and rejected the gospel according 
to John, in which it is principally taught, and the book 
of Revelation, because of the Chiliasm, winch was then 
defended by it. The Alogi, as that party was sometimes 
called, seem to have accepted Christ as a mere man or as 
deified by the indwelling of God the Father. 

Among the philosophic sects of the heathen the most 
friendly to Christianity was the Platonic; and the firmest 
opposition was exhibited by the Stoics. Some doctrines 
which Platonssm argued, Christianity revealed ; but the 
pretensions of the Stoics to a faultless morality it rejected. 
But that was the strong point of Stoicism. There was 
abundant reason in the natural heart for Stoic hostility 
to christians. Accordingly, when Marcus Aurelius, an 
illustrious member of that sect, came to the throne, (A. 
D. 161) persecution was ordered against them with an 
intelligent animosity, which had not previously been 
evinced by an emperor. It was then that Justin suffered 
death at Rome, (166) the aged Polycarp at Smyrna, and 



30 

the recently formed churches in Lyons and Vietine in 
Gaul had their faith severely tried (in 177.) Spies and 
informers were encourage^! to bring christians to trial, 
and the agency of persecution was in the local tribunals 
sustained by the imperial authority. 

From contemporaneous statements it appears that, 

1. It was distinctly for their doctrine that christians 
were then persecuted. 

2. The purpose of the emperor, though springing 
from a different cause, coincided with the feelings of the 
heathen public, to whose bitterness and savage nature 
the style of the executions was due 

3. Local magistrates were sometimes forced beyond 
all le^al forms by the demands of the mob. 

4. Jews retained their old malignity, though no longer 
in condition to execute it of themselves. 

5. The endurance of the martyrs at that time was duo 
to christian faith, not to mere physical energy or impas- 
sive nerves, nor to the fanaticism of martyrdom. 

6. It was the superior claims of the Christians' God, 
and the doctrine of the resurrection and the life in Christ 
which chiefly exasperated the rage of the heathen. 

Among the sources of christian history for the second 
century, there are fifteen espisties under the name of 
Ignatius. They were all published for genuine as late 
as during the 16th century. But three of them, written 
in Latin were noon discovered to be spurious ; subsequent 
criticism, in a few years clearly exposed the false pre- 
tensions of five more. Bishop Pearson, an English 
divine of the 17th century, in a learned treatise, defended 
tim genuineness of the remaining seven. These exist in 
two forms, a longer and a shorter. It was the shorter 
which from about the beginning of the 18th century 
came to be generally accepted as genuine. 

But in 1843 certain ancient manuscripts of three 
Ignatian epistles in the Syriac language were brought 
from a monastery in Egypt, and deposited in the British 
Museum, which have re-opened the controversy, which is 
not yet at an end. So far as a conclusion has been 
reached, it is to throw doubt on the whole seven. Some 
critics consider the three in Syriac, as the only genuine 



61 

epistles of Ignatius ; others can see no sufficient reason 
for excepting the throe from the sweeping condemnation 
of forgery passed upon the rest. 

Although it seems most probable that some genuine 
letters of Ignatius constituted the foundation of the 
structure, it has been utterly ruined for direct use in 
history. Only indirectly can its evidence be of any value. 

The spirit of the seven epistles is that of inordinate 
hierarchical pretension, such as that the " Deacons are to 
be reverenced as Jesus Christ, the Bishop, as God the 
Father, and the Presbyters as the Sanhedrim of God, 
and college of the apostles." 

2. The second century from the end of its first quarter 
onward, was a period fertile in heresies. Without a 
systematic theology to sustain and restrain them, and 
with <t terminology general and undefined, men ran wild 
in speculation. Early christians uninspired had no more 
certainty of being always in the ri^ht than christians of 
later days ; and from lack of experience were more 
likely to make mistakes. 

Knowledge of the heresies of that time, especially of 
Gnosticism, is best obtained from Irenaeus who came 
from Smyrna into Gaul as a missionary, and after the 
death of Pothinus in 177, became bishop of the church 
in Lyons, where he continued to labor until his death. 
The best exponent of Montanism is Tertuilian. 

During this period the principal efforts of christian 
writers were addressed to evidences of the truth of their 
religion, and of its benign effects upon private life and 
the order of society, and counteract the progress of heresy. 
The oldest, and still the best of the creeds, called the 
Apostles' is now mentioned. It occurs in various forms 
in Irenaeus, Tertuilian and Origen. And from the fact 
that it does appear under such a variety of forms, there 
is no reason to believe that it is apostolic in any other 
sense than that of presenting a summary of the Apostles' 
teaching. 

Though christians had their honored traditions, 
Scripture was the standard of their faith. It is continu- 
ally quoted in their writings. Their familiarity with it 
was very remarkable. Eusebius speaks of persons who 



32 

could repeat at will any required passage from either the 
Old or New Testament. 

The Greek originals of the New Testament were gen- 
erally in use, both in the East and West, and the Septu- 
agint, or Old Greek version of the Old Testament. But 
translations, for instruction of the unlearned, were at an 
early date made into Latin. One of the oldest, perhaps, 
of those versions was the Itala, which in course of time 
came to be very highly esteemed and commonly used. 
Another Latin version it is thought existed in Gaul; and 
a third must have been made within the same period for 
the use of the churches in Africa. 

External uniformity was not enforced over the 
churches by any central authority, nor by any all com- 
hending general government. Coordinate churches held 
more or less intercourse by letter, and by transfer of 
members from one to another, and in cases of common 
danger, churches of the same province, or even of more 
extensive tracts of country, held councils or conferences 
together. And all the churches treated each other as 
members of one great commonwealth, and all adhered to 
fundamentally the same system of poliiy, discipline and 
worship. And all claimed the right of interfering with 
remonstrance and reproof where any one had departed 
from the common standard. 

3. 

Another section of this period of church history is 
marked by the rise to distinction of the great christian 
schools, whereby the character of learning, or erudition 
is for the first time attached to Christian literature. 
That may be considered as the principal feature of church 
progress until the rise of the controversy on episcopal 
rights and prerogatives. The section begins with the 
persecution under ISeptiniins Severus in 202, and closes 
with the legalizing of Christianity by Gallienus in 201. 

The men whose lives and labors express the special 
purpose of the period are its great scholars and theolog- 
ians; in Greek, Pantaen us, Julius African us, Hippolytus, 
and others; and in the Latin, Tertullian, Minuting 
Felix and Cyprian. The quarters in which christian 



33 

learning appeared with greatest distinction were Egypt, 

S}'ria, Asia Minor and North Africa : and chief of all, 

the great emporium of Alexandria in Egypt. 

From earliest date in the history of the church it was 
customary to provide instruction for children and converts 
from heathenism. The method employed was chiefly 
oral, although no doubt books were also used. The term 
xa.Ty%££v, or xar^cCco, w T as employed in relation to it. The 
name given to the work xav/jyirjacQ, and the persons so 
instructed were xaz^ynu/izvo!, &c. 

Besides these schools, a more advanced education 
was provided for those who were to be ministers of the 
gospel. 

Of all the church schools both for catechumens and 
for ministers the most eminent were those of Antioch 
and of Alexandria, and although not so much is said 
about the schools in Carthage, that city was distinguished 
by its gifted and learned men. 

Athenagoras, one of the primitive apologists, is men- 
tioned as a teacher in Alexandria in the second century. 
But ic was when Pantaenus and his pupil Clement were 
united in the management of its instructions, in the first 
years of the third century, that it began to take its place 
at the head of christian schools. 

It was distinguished from the Mouseion, that is, the 
polytheistic university of the Ptolemies, by the name 
Didascalrion. There christian theology was first sub- 
jected to scientific treatment, in the exigencies of cate- 
chetical instruction and of apologetics, in defence against 
Jews, heretics, and heathen. Alexandria was at once the 
chief seat of Polytheistic and of Jewish learning, and 
from it issued the most elaborate and ingeniously con- 
structed Gnosticism. The reputation of the christian 
school, built up by Pantaenus and Clement, was sus- 
tained by the uncommon intellectual endowments of 
Origen., by far the most learned and laborious man of his 
day. 

After the withdrawal of Origen in 231, the Didasca- 
leion was conducted by his pupil Heraclas until 233, and 
until 248, by Dionysius, whose reputation in ancient 
times was equal to that of Clement and Origen. In those 



34 

men did the christian school of Alexandria see the high- 
est point of her erudition. Most of their writings have 
perished, except those of the two last named. Clement is 
most valuable in the field of paedagogic and antiquities, 
Origen, in that of Biblical scholarship and theology. 
His views of doctrine guided the thinking of a large 
number of the ministry for many generations, and some 
of the most bitterly debated heresies had their root in 
his teaching. 

Meanwhile the Syrian school, which had its seat at 
Antioch, was rising towards that eminence, which it 
matured a hundred years later. In the early part of the 
third century its greatest ornament was Julius African us, 
who was not however a native of Antioch, but of Emmaus 
in Palestine, where most of his life was spent. His 
principal work was Annals of the world from the creation, 
of which only parts are extant. He died in 232. 

After the death of Commodus, in 192, we enter upon 
a new period of imperial history. From the death of 
Julius Caesar, regard for him had conferred the accumu- 
lated honors upon his legal heir, and as long as adoption 
continued the succession ■ the empire was hereditary in 
his family. With the death of ISFero that came to an 
end; and appointment to the highest office* was grasped 
by the army. Corrected early by the accession of the 
Flavian family, that evil was successfully repelled for a 
much longer time by the wise method of Nerva, which 
secured a steady rule until the death of Commodus. 
Then all check upon election Iry the army being removed 
the decline of Imperial authority began. Pertinax was 
raised to the throne, but retained it only three months. 
Didius Julianus purchased it by a large bounty to the 
Pretorian guard ; but lost it together with his life in 
about two months. More reliable military support sus- 
tained other candidates, among wdiom Scptimius Severus 
with the army of Illyricum proved successful. The Pre- 
torian guards were disbanded, and Severus organized in 
their stead a new force, more numerous, and for himself 
more reliable. He proved a stem, but successful ruler, 
both in peace and war. After a campaign of great 
exposure in Britain, he died at York, in 211 having 
reigned from 193. 



35 

In the first years of Severus, Christians suffered only 
from the animosity of the heathen populace and some of 
the provincial governors. But in 202 an imperial edict 
was issued forbidding any who were heathen to become 
christian. Of course it bore heaviest upon those who 
conducted s christian worship and the schools of the church. 
It was thus that Clement and Pantaenus were driven from 
their work in Alexandria, that Leonidas, the father of 
Origen, was brought to the block, and that Potamiaena, 
Perpetua, and Felicitas, and many others sealed their 
testimony with their blood. 

In the reign of Caracalla, the son and successor of 
Severus, the Roman empire began to experience the 
effects of waning power. The emperor impoverished his 
subjects to pamper the army, and purchased the privilege 
of peace from his enemies Having made himself odious 
at Rome, he extended Roman citizenship to ail the 
subjects of the empire, and withdrew from the city. He 
was put to death by Macrinus, Prefect of the Pretorian 
guard, (in 217.) The assassin took his [dace, but was 
slain next year by the soldiers, who set up Heliogabalus, 
a ;>oy of fourteen years of age. At the end of four 
years the boy-emperor, precocious in profligacy, met the 
fate he had ordered for many others. In 222 Alexander 
Severus succeeded to the throne. One of his first acts was 
to revoke all edicts against christians. His mother Julia 
Maminaea was so friendly to them that many believed her 
one of their number. The liberality of Alexander was 
extended to the great and ^ood of everv name. His 
domestic chapel contained busts standing for Abraham, 
for Christ, Orpheus, and Apoilonius of Tyana; and the 
golden rule of Christ he had inscribed upon the walls of 
his palace. 

In the fourth year of his reign, Persian nation- 
ality was revived under Ardishir Bahegan, who over- 
threw the Parthians, renewed the claims of the successors 
of Cyrus, and prepared to drive the Romans from Asia. 
The Avestan religion was restored, and Christians were 
driven back into the empire, or subjected to severe oppres- 
sion ; the beginning of long continued persecution in 
that quarter. Sassanide princes recognized no such affin- 



88 



ity between their degenerate Avestanism and the gospel 
of Christ, as their hero Cyrus had recognized between 
the Avestan faith of his day and the religion of the 
Jews. 

The first Persian invasion Alexander successfully 
resisted; and had turned his victorious arms against 
enemies in the north, when lie was murdered. He had 
reigned thirteen years. Maximin, a Thracian, was ele- 
vated by the army. He exhibited his hatred to the 
christians by indulging the heathen populace in their 
cruelties to them, and directing his own attacks upon their 
clergy. At the end of about three years (238) lie was 
slain by his own soldiers. 

In this instance the senate at Rome disputed the right 
of the army in the north to appoint a master for the 
empire, and favored the election of Gordian, proconsul 
of Africa ; and when he. was slain, transferred their 
preference to a younger member of his family, a boy of 
twelve years. At the end of six years the younger Gor- 
dian was murdered by order of Philip the Arabian, who 
assumed the purple in his stead. 

Under the jurisdiction of Gordian the churches were 
not molested ; and Philip was even friendly. In 249 lie 
was defeated in battle with Decius, and slain. Decins 
marked his reign by issuing in 249, an order to all gov- 
ernors of provinces to return to the ancient state religion, 
and to enforce it by the severest penalties, thereby insti- 
tuting one of the most sanguinary persecutions that the 
church has ever been called to endure. It extended to 
the whole empire. It was also occasion of much subse- 
quent controversy touching the discipline of those who 
had succumbed to suffering, or fear. 

Decius, slain in battle with the Goths, in 251, was 
succeeded by Gall us, who renewed the persecution after 
a brief relaxation. But, in 253, Gallus was slain by his 
soldiers. His successor, Emilianus, met the same fate 
in three months. Valerian was raised to the throne, 
and held it until 260, when he was defeated and taken 
prisoner by the Persians. 

Persecution, restrained in the first years of Valerian, 
was received in 257. By Gallienus, the son and successor 



37 

of Valerian, it was brought to an end, in 261, and 
Christianity recognized as a lawful religion, received for 
the first time a title to governmental toleration. Thence 
forward, until the time of Diocletian, the Christians suf- 
fered little molestation. 

Christians were still the minority of the population 
upon the whole; but in some provinces they were more 
numerous than the heathen, and their continual increase 
was a matter of frequent remark. They could no longer 
be treated with contempt. They were fast becoming a 
great party in the empire, threatening to overpower the 
heathen, and extinguish the religion and observances of 
their fathers, all that they had been accustomed to honor 
and revere. 

No longer could the charges of disloyalty, or of im- 
moral conduct be advanced against christians; but that 
of atheism, as the heathen meant it, was fully established. 
Their cause was distinctly apprehended to be death to 
the worship of the gods, and to the very belief in their 
existence. 

Christian influence had been operating so long that it 
had wrought an important change upon the moral char- 
acter of society in general. Vices once so common as to 
he little blamed, were now branded with disgrace: and 
certain abominations once practised in Heathen temples, 
and esteemed essential parts of worship, had ceased ; and 
were now regarded as corruptions, from which Polythe- 
ism had purified itself in returning to its own standards. 
That Christianity had some good in it was not now denied; 
but it was urged that Polytheism had more, and that it 
maintained a reverence for the gods, and a ritual worship 
indispensable to the completeness of the service men 
owed them. It was argued that the virtues of Christians 
were disfigured by a low and tasteless manner of life, a 
barbarous form of worship and rude fanatical spirit, and 
that by their Atheism they were bringing down the 
wrath of the gods upon the empire. The attitude of the 
most intelligent heathen towards Christianity and their 
own religion was not unlike that of the Bramo Somaj in 
India, at the present time : and the Neo-Platonic philos- 
ophy was accepted as their guide. 



38 

Ammonias Saecas, the founder of that philosophy 
died in 243, at the age of more than eighty years. His 
system was one in which some elements of Christianity 
and of oriental speculation were engrafted upon the stock 
of Platonism. 

The heathen had also their wonder-working sage, in 
the Pythagorean philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana, whom 
some of them set up as a rival to Christ. Apollonius 
was a real person, who lived ahoat the time of Christ, 
and obtained some distinction in letters. A work pro- 
fessing to give an account of his life was written about 
the year 220, by Philostratus, at the instance of Julia 
Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus, which is full of 
extravagant fictions, attributing to him miracles like those 
of Christ, but also most heathenish falsehood and decep- 
tion. 

It was still around the question of the wonderful per- 
son of Christ that the theological discussions of christians 
arrayed themselves. But the principal point was no 
longer whether his body was real or not ; it was now of 
his Deity. And the bearing of the controversy was de- 
termined by the opinions of those who taught the single- 
ness of person in Godhead, called by the general name 
Monarchianism. 

That style of doctrine presented itself in several forms, 
one of w T hich was but a variation upon Ebionisni, teach- 
ing that Christ was only a man conceived by miraculous 
means, and endowed with the divine wisdom from his 
birth. The power of God was conferred upon him in 
greater degree than upon the prophets, or any other 
human being. The distinction of the party holding this 
doctrine was due to Theodotus, a Byzantine, who came 
to Rome in the latter part of the second century. 

Similar was the teaching of Artemon about the same 
time in Rome. Although rejected by christiansgenerally 
and by some eminent writers, it continued to be defended 
by a party through the first half of the third century. 
It was preached by Beryl 1 us bishop of Bostra as late as 
244. But at a synod in Bostra that year, he listened to 
his own refutation by Origen, and recanted. 

2. A second variety of Monarchianism was that which 
claimed all deity for Christ. The Father and the Son 



39 

were only different modes of designating the same sub- 
ject. The one God, who in other respects is the Father, 
becomes in his appearance in human nature, the Son. 
Jesus was divine by the indwelling of the only person in 

Godhead. 

This doctrine was first preached in Rome by Praxeas 
who came from Asia Minor about the end of the reign 
of Commodus (192.) By opposition to Montanus he 
drew upon himself the censure of Tertullian, who charged 
his doctrine with seeking to commend itself as teaching 
the monarchy of God. The expression lias given a gen- 
eral name for that class of heresies. 

For holding doctrines similar to those of Praxeas, 
Noetus was excommunicated in Smyrna, in 230. Some- 
times this class of monarchians were called Patripassian, 
according to a saving of Tertullian about Praxeas, that 
" two works of the Devil he wrought in Koine, he drove 
out prophecy and brought in heresy, put the Holy Spirit 
to flight and crucified the Father." 

3. Another doctrine of kindred nature was that of 
Sabellius, a presbyter in Ptolemais. between 250 and 260, 
who taught that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were 
not, in the common acceptation, different persons, but 
different manifestations of the same person. Christ was 
divine, not as an emanation from God. not by indwelling 
of the Father : but as that particular manifestation called 
the Son. We conceive of God in his self-existant, crea- 
tive and all-supporting power, as the Father ; in the illu- 
minating power of the Logos, as the Son. and in his 
enlivening power in the hearts of believers, as the Holy 
Spirit ; and thus have three divine energies in one person. 

Moreover Sabellius believed that the man Jesus was 
not a common man, but specially adapted for that union 
with Deity 

By the churches in general the 'doctrine of a trinity 
in unity of the Godhead was held as firmly as at any 
other time: but discussion of the subject was working 
towards a logical expression, not yet satisfactorily attained. 

Controversy also arose out of the method of scriptural 
interpretation adopted by the Alexandrian School, and 
especially by Origen. That method recognized a three- 



40 

fold meaning in Scripture, namely the literal, or histori- 
cal, the moral, and the mystical. By urging the mystical 
meaning of certain texts Origen was charged with some- 
times denying the historical ; and the method, if it had 
some advocates, also encountered strong opposition. 

Origen in his theology also gave occasion to much 
controversy. His views were expressed in commentaries 
on scripture, and in separate treatises, as well as in a sys- 
tematic work on theology, called De. Principiis. That 
work was assailed from various quarters as containing 
heresy, it was also defended hy some of the ablest writ- 
ers of that and the succeeding century. It was both 
accused and defended on the charge of Platonism. 
Although obviously designed to controvert Gnostic specu- 
lations, it was colored to some extent by them. The 
principal points of his system were, 

1. That God is everlastingly active, creating from and 
to all eternity. 

2. That all intellectual beings are originally equal, 
and clothed in bodies, God being the only disembodied 
spirit. The differences among men are due to their 
remaining holy or sinking in sin. But all are free to 
return to righteousness, even the Devil is capable of 
amelioration and pardon. 

3. The Logos, the Mediator of all divine agency, and 
inferior to the supreme God, did not proceed from the 
essence of the Father, as an emanation, but as a constant 
ray ef the divine glory, was generated by the will of God 
from eternity. 

4. The Holy Spirit, and all other beings were created 
by the Logos. 

5. In Jesus the Logos united himself to a real body 
and a human soul, both specially prepared for him. 

6. To attain the highest virtue, a man must be free 
from all restraints of sensuality, and of self-interest, hav- 
ing for his aim to be like God. 

7. Alexandrian theologians held that the resurrection 
body will not be of earthly material, but spiritual and 
incorruptible. 

8. They accordingly rejected the expectations of sen- 
sual chiliasm. 



41 

Origen held that Christ is of "a nature midway between 

the uncreated and that of all creatures.'' All creatures 
derive their being from the Father through the Son. The 
Son proceeds from the will of the Father. 

Dionysius, the pupil and successor of Origen in the 
christian school, in his attempt to develop the idea of his 
master more precisely, was led to designate the Divine 
Logos as created of the Father, a step from which he 
afterwards withdrew. It was subsequently taken by a 
less scrupulous controversialist. 

It was commonly believed that after the resurrection 
there would be an earthly kingdom of Christ, in which 
the saints should, for a thousand years, enjoy much hap- 
piness. That was to be the great Sabbath of the world's 
history, and was to occur, as some thought, after the lapse 
of six thousand years from the creation. A small party, 
deriving its origin from Cerinthus, expected that mil- 
lennium as a period for enjoyment of sensual pleasures. 
A literal acceptance of the millennium described in the 
book of Revelation was insisted on by Xepos and Cora- 
cion, Egyptian bishops. But their teaching on that point 
was opposed by Dionysius of Alexandria so effectually 
that before a synod held at Arsinoein 255, Coracion pro- 
fessed himself convinced of his error and renounced it. 
Subsequently through the efforts of Dionysius and 
others that style of chiliasm was abandoned in the east- 
ern churches. 

During this period we find more frequent mention of 
edifices exclusively used for christian worship. In 202 
it appears that there was a church building in Edessa. 
Alexander Severus gave a piece of laud in Rome for a 
christian place of worship, and in the edict of Gallienus 
their places of worship are directed to be restored to 
christians. Such an edifice was called a place of prayer 
(TzooGsuxzyjpeov), or the Lord's house (or/oz xuocaxoz, or orxca 
xupeaxy, or later zb xupcaxov), or the house of the meeting 
(orxoz Ixxh^aiaq, or simply ixxfojaia). From earl} T in the 
third century, the idea of constructing such houses more 
or less after the model of the temple at Jerusalem, took 
possession of the minds of christians in some quarters. 
And where that was carried out, worship began to be 



celebrated in a more forma] manner, and a greater dis- 
tinction to be made between the ministry and the congre- 
gation.? Terms also belonging to the temple and the 
temple service gradual!}' crept in. 

Holy days, from the middle of the second century, 
were gradually multiplied. The churches in some places 
began to hold meetings on Wednesdays and Fridays, the 
days of the Lord's betrayal and crucifixion. And the 
observation of the Lord's Passion and of Pentecost was 
fully established, in the west, as well as in the east, before 
'the close of the second century. The manner of that 
observation gave rise to a controversy of some warmth. 
The churches of Asia Minor observed the feast on the 
14th of the first Jewish mouth, Nisan, and on the third 
day after that, the memorial of the resurrection, follow- 
ing closely the historical order, although the day of the 
month did not, of course, in most years correspond to 
the day of the week, on which the Lord suffered. The 
church of Kome, on the other hand, with those of Alexan- 
dria, Jerusalem, Tyre and Csesarea of Palestine adhered 
strictly to the days of the week though they might not 
correspond always to the same days of the month. 
Touching this difference, Polyearp, on a visit to Rome 
in 162, had conference with the bishop of Rome, but 
neither of them persuaded the other, nor thought it of 
such importance as to impair their fraternal affection. 
But about 196, Victor bishop of Rome, assuming such 
pre-eminence as the imperial city exercised in civil mat- 
ters, and claiming superior place in the church as suc- 
cessor of St. Peter, undertook to compel the churches of 
Asia Minor into compliance with the western practice, 
by the terrors of excommunication. He was quickly 
admonished of his error by several bishops, in both east 
and w r est, among the rest, by Polycrates of Ephesus, and 
Irenaeus of Lyons. The case ended in leaving each 
church to decide for itself, until the council of ISTice, 135 
years later, acting for all the churches, declared in favor 
of the western custom. The Easter observance assumed 
greater proportions in the course of the third century. 
The chief points being the crucifixion, the resurrection, 
and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pente- 



43 

cost, the first was commemorated by fasting, the second 

and the third by festivals, and the interval between them 
as the Sabbath of the christian year. 

Long continued, or at least, frequently recurring per- 
secution had constrained the christians, in many quarters, 
to keep their times and [daces of worship secret. Secrecy 
began to be regarded as an essential element of some 
parts of their service, which were spoken of as mysteries. 
During the celebration of the Lord's Supper it was 
thought proper that all heathen, and unbaptized specta- 
tors should be excluded. At Rome, Naples, Syracuse, 
and some other places, christians found refuge in caverns 
beneath the ground, where they both conducted their 
worship and buried their dead Many of those catacum- 
bae (catacombs) have been opened within recent time. 

Inordinate importance was now attached to martyr- 
dom bj r the churches generally; Origen went the length 
of attributing to it a dignity and efficacy similar to the 
death of Christ. In his estimation, persecution was a 
real good, audits cessation contemplated as an evil. The 
intercession of martyrs was thought to be of avail on 
high. Exorcism of those to be baptized is now mentioned, 
that is certain ceremonies and prayers were used for the 
purpose of casting out the evil spirits who were supposed 
to hold all unbaptized persons under their power. 

The practice of asceticism was increasing, but was yet 
entirely a matter of individual choice. 

In the last years of the second century we meet the 
earliest christian writings in Latin. They belong to the 
church of Northern Africa, and are the earlier works of 
Tertulliau. The history of the North African church 
begins with that earliest of the Latin fathers. Alreedy 
it consisted of a great number of prosperous christian 
communities. 

Tertullian appears first as an apologist about 190. He 
^•as a native of Carthage, son of a proconsular centurion, 
became a presbyter in the church of his native city, and 
wrote a great number of works in the christian cause, 
chiefly in the reigns of Severus and Caracalla, between 
193 and 217. After he had passed middle life he 
embraced the opinions of Montanus, with which his later 



44 



writings are imbued. About the .same time Minutius 
Felix, a Roman lawyer wrote an apologetic work in 
defence of Christianity in form of a dialogue, which he 
called Octavius : and Cains, a presbyter at Rome, wrote 
a treatise against Montanism, while Xovatian, also a 
presbyter in the same church, defended that faction, and 
introduced it into the west of Europe. 

Alter the death of Tertullian, the most eminent leader 
of ecclesiastical opinion was Cyprian, also a native of 
Africa, and born about the beginning of the third century. 
Until middle life he was a heathen. His education had 
been careful, in his profession of rhetoric be was success- 
ful and amassed considerable fortune, upon his conversion 
about 246, he sold all, and distributed the price to the 
poor. Next year he was ordained presbyter in Carthage, 
and in 248, elected bishop. In the persecution under 
Decius he was marked out for a victim, but succeeded in 
eluding arrest. Eight years later, in the persecution 
under Valerian, he was singled out with such purpose 
that escape, if practicable, was not within what he deemed 
the bounds of duty to his people He suffered death for 
the profession of his faith in the year 258. Much of 
Cyprian's attention was constrained to the subject of 
church government and discipline, and to them do the 
most important of his writings pertain. 

In the terrible persecution under Decius, and con- 
tinued by Gallus, many christians fell away, and denied 
their faith in order to save their lives. They sacrificed 
to heathen gods 5 or offered incense, or procured certifi- 
cates from the magistrates that the\ T were not christians, 
and were designated accordingly as sacrificaii, thurificati, 
or libcllatici. When the persecution had passed over, 
many who had thus escaped made application to be taken 
back into the church. It became a matter of no little 
difficulty to settle the terms upon which they were to be 
re-admitted or rejected. 

In the church of northern Africa, a, difference in the 
presbytery upon the election of Cyprian to the bishopric 
of Carthage, led to the separation of a minority. Five 
presbyters, at wdiose head was Novatus, refused to 
approve of the election, and as Cyprian soon afterwards 



45 

was driven from his place by persecution, they proceeded 
to conduct their affairs without him. They ordained as 
a deacon Felicissimus, who subsequently became chief of 
the party. The question of the lapsed widened the 
schism. Cyprian was in favor of imposing a severe 
probation upon those who wished to return to their place 
in the church ; Felicissimus and his party would re-admit 
them upon the simple presentation of their petition. A 
synod of the African church, which met in 251, resolved 
to re-admit the lapsed upon condition of their repent- 
ance, and submission to such probationary exercises as 
the church might think proper in each particular case. 

In the church of Rome, about the same time, a similar 
schism took place. On the election of Cornelius as 
bishop, in 251, a minority of the Presbytery dissented 
on account of his leniency towards the lapsed, and chose 
Novatianus as their bishop. The course adopted by 
them touching the lapsed was that of refusing to admit 
them on any terms, holding as a general principle that 
great sins committed after baptism should exclude from 
the privileges of the church. A considerable number of 
both clergy and laityjoined them, and formed that party, 
which either took or accepted the name of Cathari, or 
Puritans. 

A synod at Rome, in 251 took action against that 
party, and in favor of such a moderate course towards 
the lapsed as that adopted by the synod of Carthage in 
the same year. 

In the case of both the African and Roman schisms 
the dissenters defended their organization on Presbyte- 
rian ground in opposition to the high prelatical assump- 
tions of the bishops of Rome and Carthage. But it was 
then too late to organize a successful resistance to prelacy 
on that ground, directly or indirectly. The question of 
ministerial equality had already to be debated on a differ- 
ent level. Two Spanish bishops, Basilides of Leon and 
Martial of Merida, were deposed by a Spanish Synod, as 
being libdlatici. They applied to Stephen, bishop of 
Rome for his influence in their favor. Stephen assumed 
to restore them, and received them into communion with 
his church. The Spanish church consulted that of Africa, 



46 

which at a Synod in Carthage censured the bishop of 
Home for participation in the disorderly conduct of the 
deposed bishops. 

Again, the validity of baptism by heretics had been 
denied by the African churches, at a council held at 
Carthage, about the beginning of the century, and by 
those of Asia Minor, in a council at Iconium in 235. 

In Rome, and some other places in the west, the op- 
posite view was taken, and acted on. Persons having 
received heretical baptism were admitted into the com- 
munion of the church by laying on of the hands of 
the bishop. When Stephen became bishop in Rome, he 
Undertook to constrain all churches to conform to che 
custom of his own, and threatened to excommunicate the 
churches in Asia Minor, if they adhered to their discipline 
in that respect. Firmilian of Csesarea in Cappadocia 
responded by retorting the charge of schism upon 
Stephen, and sharply reproving him for his assumption. 
Stephen was also censured for that act by Dionysius of 
Alexandria. In Africa the same view of his conduct was 
taken by the synod which met in Carthage in 254 and 
again by that of 255. That decision was communicated 
to the bishop of Rome in a letter drawn up by Cyprian, 
who also defended the equality of all bishops. Stephen's 
auswer to the African bishops was overbearing ; and his 
threat was repeated that the Roman church would sepa- 
rate from their communion. In 256 another synod at 
Carthage affirmed the action of its predecessors; and 
Cyprian took occasion more fully to state the views which 
he and the other members of the synod held touching the 
equality of bishops. 

From those statements it appears that a new epoch 
has been reached in the history of the ministry. The 
distinction betweeu presbyter and bishop is not only 
clearly made, but the bishops of some great cities, 
especially of Rome, are beginning to assume superiority 
over other bishops. The opposition is mainly upon an 
episcopal basis. Rome is now spoken of as the chair of 
St. Peter, not in the sense that Peter was ever bishop 
there ; but that during a visit he had directed the affairs 
of the church as an apostle. The pretension of the 



47 

Roman bishop is not admitted by the bishops of the east, 
of Alexandria, of North Africa or of Spain. But in 
opposing it. on the equality of bishops, episcopacy as a 
separate rank in the ministry is more fully defined than 
ever before. By Cyprian the essentials of the church are 
held to consist in a particular organization, and a con- 
nection with bishops in the line of apostolic appointment. 
On this head lie coincided with many others in his day; 
and in defending it constructed the foundation for the 
very evil he was controverting. 

Still, a gre;it number of the bishops, whose equality 
was defended by Cyprian, were only pastors of single 
congregations. But in the larger churches of great cities, 
church extension developed a new feature of episcopacy. 
The principle that all the christians of one city should 
form but one church, after the establishment of the rule 
of but one bishop in one church, inevitably produced 
prelacy. For when the church increased in numbers and 
had to divide into several congregations the one bishop 
was constrained to employ presbyter assistants to conduct 
worship at the different places of meeting. And these 
presbyters necessarily became the pastors of the respect- 
ive charges over which they were set. The bishop of 
such a city church became the chief over a number of 
pastors, who in rank were only presbyters ; while the 
bishops in small towns and country places, where there 
had been no such increase of numbers remained bishops 
over only their single respective congregations. It was 
natural that the bishop who presided over the pastors of 
several congregations should assume superiority over 
him who had pastoral charge of only one. Such is the 
juncture at the middle of the third century, when even 
the bishop of Rome, who claims a place of superiority 
among bishops, h«s yet no episcopal jurisdiction over 
bishops, nor superior rank among them. It was a state of 
things which could not continue. No argument, how- 
ever strong, for the equality of bishops, in circumstances 
so different, could withstand the tendency to further dis- 
crimination of ranks. 

It is also within this period that regular provincial 
councils come distinctly to notice. In the second century 



48 

mention is often made of councils in different provinces, 
as those in relation to Montanism, held at Hierapolis in 
Phrygia, and at Anchialus in Thrace; in relation to the 
Colarbasians, held at Pergamn^ in 152, on the Easter 
observance, held at Ephesus 196, and one at Rome in 
197, also at Jerusalem, at Caisarea, in Pontus, at Lyons, 
in Osrhoene, and in Corinth. Tertullian speaks of coun- 
cils as habitually held in Greece, and Firmilian of Asia 
Minor mentions them as being of regular recurrence ; 
but of very few in the second century have the dates been 
recorded. In the third century their history is more 
definite. There were councils in Carthage in 218 or 222, 
on baptism of heretics; 251, in relation to Felicissimus ; 
252, on early baptism; 253, on baptism by heretics; 
254, in relation to the Spanish bishops, 255, and two in 
256, relating to the controversy with Rome. 

In the same period there were councils at Rome in 
231, 251, 256 and 260. In Alexandria two are mentioned 
in 231 and soon after, touching the disputes of Demetrius 
with Origen. Others are mentioned elsewhere, as one in 
Bostra in Arabia, in 244, one at Zambesa in Africa in or 
about 240, at Iconium in 230 or 258, at Ephesus in 245, 
in Achaia, in or about 25U, in Narbonnc Gaul in 255, or 
260, and somewhere in Arabia in 247. 

In the first instance Synods held in check the increas- 
ing pretensions of the bishops of great cities ; but latterly, 
by defending ministerial equality on the basis of episco- 
pacy, not of presbytery, they actually made the most 
effective support of that ecclesiastical aristocracy which 
was now assuming its position in the churches. For 
consistently with the municipal element of the ancient 
church, and which was fundamental in the ancient idea 
of government, the presidency of a council resided in the 
bishop ot the chief city of the province in which it was 
held. 

From heathen mysteries some christians borrowed 
the idsa of esoteric and exoteric doctrines. The written 
Word contained the exoteric, or public instruction, 
although it also beneath its obvious sense concealed a 
higherniystical meaning, which only those enlightened by 
esoteric instruction could desccrn. Certain things were 



49 

also taught in secret to the more advanced in christian 
attainment, which were said to have been communicated 
by Christ to his disciples, but never committed to writing. 
When we enquire after these arcana, there is nothing to 
be found but fanciful speculation, allegorical treatment 
of Scripture, or pretended facts of little account. 

The sacrament of Baptism was now burdened with 
ceremonies giving it much of the character of initiation 
to mysteries. And in some churches none were permit- 
ted to witness its administration who had not been them- 
selves baptized. In some churches, if not generally, the 
candidate for baptism was first exorcised, to drive away 
evil spirits from him. Then, after application of the 
water, the kiss of peace was given him, and a mixture of 
milk and honey was administered. He was then anointed 
and marked on the forehead with the sign of the cross. 
After which the minister laid his hands upon him, and 
bestowed the benediction. 

The baptism of children was the common order of the 
church, although not universal. For some, as the Mon- 
tanists and Cathari, holding that heinous sin after bap- 
tism could not be pardoned, opposed infant baptism, and 
even in the case of adults, encouraged the deferring of it 
until lare in life, or the threatened approach of death. 

Sponsors were also introduced in some churches in 
the time of Tertullian, who opposed the practice, as 
another objectionable consequence of infant baptism. 

In the Lord's supper, we read from Justin Martyr, 
that wine mingled with water was used, it was the com- 
mon waj- of using wine at table ; but in the third century, 
superstition recognized a mj^stery in that mixture. The 
water represented the people, the wine, the blood of 
christ, and their mingling, the union of Christ with the 
multitude of the faithful. 

The notion of sacrificial efficacy in the elements 
had begun to prevail, as early as the time of Tertullian. 
And in some places the sacrement was observed daily, 
under the belief that the elements were the spiritual food 
of the soul, to which the second petition of the Lord's 
Prayer referred, and which imparted to the material frame 
of the believer the germ of immortality. 



50 

In earlier times the preparation of catechumens was 
merely their instruction and that fraternal treatment 
which elicited evidences of their piety ; but by and by, 
it began to assume the color of austerities, after the 
manner of initiation to heathen mysteries. Then the 
re-admission of those excommunicated for great sins was 
thought to require a discipline still more severe. The nu- 
merous cases of the lapsed, about the middle of 3rd cen- 
tury seemed to render that course necessary to the pur- 
ity ot the church. Thus was the practice of penance fully 
inaugurated before the death of Cyprian ; and even those 
who dissented from it contributed to define it. The 
Cathari would readmit none who had been guilty of great 
sin after baptism ; they had therefore to distinguish be- 
tween sins deadly and venial. 

In the large churches it was thought expedient to 
appoint a presbyter to examine penitents and hear from 
them what they were willing to confess before the congrega- 
tion, and to announce to each the penance demanded of 
him by the existing regulations. Such an officer was 
called the Presbyter penetentiarius. 

It is plain that there was during the first half of the 
third century a great influx of error and of mistaken 
practice; and yet never did the history of martyrdom 
present a nobler roll of witnesses to the truth. And in 
the glimpse which we obtain into the private character 
of christians, both men and women, we behold the most 
beautiful fruits of the life in Christ. The leading minds 
in the christian literature of the time were the great 
teachers in the school at Alexandria, Pantaenus, Clement, 
Origen, Heraclas, and Dionysius, secondly, the African 
fathers, Tertullian and Cyprian ; thirdly, those of the 
Syrian School, of whom Julius African us was the most 
illustrious, nor ought Beryllus of Bostra to be overlooked 
in ihe history of doctrinal development, fourthly those of 
Asia Minor, represented by Firmilian and Gregory 
Thaumaturgus, and some of the earliest Monarchiaus, 
fifthly, those of Rome among whom Minutius Felix, Cor- 
nelius, and Stephen were the most eminent; Hippolytus 
was an illustrious Christian author in connection with 
that Church, but he wrote in the Greek language; and 



51 

sixthly, some bishops of Spain and of Gaul appear as 
leaders of opinion, of whose writings little or nothing 
remains. By far the most valuable writings of the time 
are those left by the great christian scholars of Alexan- 
dria and Carthage. 

IV.- 261 TO 325 A.D 

From the legalizing of Christianity in 261 a new stage 
of christian history began, and continued until 325, when 
Constantine, carried to the throne of the empire by 
Christian arms, commenced the reconstruction of the 
whole not as a dominion of annexed provinces, but as 
one organic whole, into which Christianity was interwoven 
as the state religion, and called the first general council 
of the church. 

1. It was the last period of persecution inflicted by 
authority of the Roman government. 

2. Secondly, its issue was the triumph of Christianity 
as the stronger power in the empire. 

3. It was the period of diocesan aristocracy, during 
which bishops, claiming equality among themselves, held 
in common superiority over the other clergy, while some 
were gradually establishing their superiority among 
bishops. 

4. Fourthly, it was the period of controversy with the 
ablest leaders of the .Neo-Platonic philosophy. 

The time when the imperial office was entirely in the 
gift of the army, and which began with the death of 
Comrnodus, lasted until the accession of Diocletian in 
284. Its latter years exhibited the empire almost in a 
state of anarchy. Division was as active in the state, as 
organization in the church. Gallienus reigned from 260 
until 268 ; but so many were his rivals that they have in 
a general way received the name of the thirty in refer- 
ence to the Thirty tyrants in Athens. Gallienus was 
himself murdered by one of them, who was defeated in 
his expectation of the throne by the fact that Gallienus 
had already designated Claudius as his successor, and by 
the superiority of Claudius on the battle field. Claudius 
died in 270. His succesor retained the honor only 17 
days. Aurelian conquered the rebel Kingdom of Pal- 



02 



myra, and all his military rivals, re-established the sub- 
ordination of the empire, and repelled its foreign foes; 
but at the end of five years of extraordinary activity he 
also fell by assassination, 275. The senate elected M. 
C. Tacitus, a good man and able prince, but of advanced 
age, who sank beneath the toils of office in about seven 
months. Florian, and Probus were set up, the former 
by the Senate, the latter by the army in Syria. Florian 
was early put to death by his soldiers ; Probus, reaping 
the fruits of Aurelian's victories, carried his arms suc- 
cessfully against invasion from the north. But he also 
fell by the hand of violence. Cams was immediately in 
282 set up by the soldiers. His reign, though eminentl}" 
successful, ended in about a year. His successor Xiime- 
rianus was murdered in a few months. And in 284, 
Diocletian was proclaimed by the army. 

The accession of Diocletian constitutes an era in the 
history of both church and state. In the former it long 
continued to be used as such, under the name of Diocle- 
tian, or of the martyrs That illustrious ruler devised a 
plan to regulate and control the imperial succession, and 
to secure efficient government in every part of the empire. 

1. First in 286 he chose Maximian one of his generals 
as a colleague, and assigned to him the government of 
the west, the seat of which was at Rome. They were to 
be equal in power, both to have the title Augustus, and 
to co-operate in all affairs of the whole empire. 

2. Soon afterwards, they both chose assistants, who 
were to be emperors of a second rank under the name 
of Caesar. Diocletian chose Maximin Galerius, to whom 
was assigned Thrace and Illyricnm ; all the rest of the 
East being under his own immediate rule. Maximian 
chose Constantius Chlorus, and gave him authority over 
Spain, Gaul and Britain, retaining the other parts of the 
West for himself. 

3. The Caesars were to be as it were lieutenants of the 
Augusti, and when an Augustus died or resigned, his 
Caesar was to take his place, and select another Ca?sar. 
Thus it was hoped the empire would always have rulers 
present in all its four great quarters, always havenien, 
in its two highest places, in the ripeness of experience, 



53 

wise heads to guide or at least to counsel with the younger 
emperors while acquiring their experience, and there 
would be a regular lawful and reliable order of succes- 
sion. 

4. It seems to have been a part of the plan that, 
unless death should work the change sooner, the Augusti 

after the lapse of a certain time, or the attainment of a 
certain age, should abdicate and leave the supreme au- 
thority to their Caesars. 

It was a beautiful scheme, but presumed upon dis- 
interested virtue in ambitious men, — a fatal presumption: 
and yet it secured twenty years of orderly government, 
and perhaps suggested to him who overthrew it the con- 
ception of one which proved more durable. 

• It was no whim, nor mere weakness which at the end of 
twenty-one years, led Diocletian, in 305, to abdicate and go 
into retirement. His colleague Augustus, Maximian, also 
complied with the rule. Their Csesars, accordingly 
became Angusti, and new Caesars were appointed. 

Galerius was now Augustus of the East, and Con- 
stantius of the West, while the Caesar of the East was 
Maximin Daza, ami in the West, Severus. 

Constautius died at York in 306. Thereupon the 
soldiers arrogated to themselves the power so long kept 
out of their hands. The army of Britain insisted upon 
making Constantiue, the son of Constantius, Augustus. 
And the young prince accepted their nomination with- 
out regard to Diocletian's scheme. Other pretenders 
arose elsewhere. Galerius maintained the scheme in the 
East, and Maximian returned to defend it in the West. 
But the case was decided by the sword. Severus was 
defeated and slain, and Constantine marched in victory 
from Britain to Rome. In the neighborhood of the city 
he fought the decisive battle of Saxa Rubra in 312. It 
was in that campaign that he saw, as he thought, the 
luminous cross in the heavens. 

Galerius died in 311. and Maximin Daza succeeded to 
the place of Augustus of the east, with Licinius as Caesar : 
Constantine being sole emperor of the west. 

From the time of Gallienus, Christians had been free 
from persecution by governmental order, until the nine- 



54 

teenth year of the reign of Diocletian, when persuaded, it 

is said by the urgency of his Caesar, the senior emperor 
gave his sanction to a new attempt to suppress their 
worship. He soon after abdicated, but the persecution 
was continued by his successor, who as Caesar had insti- 
gated it. Just before his death in 311, Galerius revoked 
the edict of persecution. After his death it was again 
put in force ; but could now take effect only in the east. 
In the west, from its beginning under Maximian, it was 
light, and lasted not quite two years. 

JSTo sooner had Constantine secured himself in com- 
mand of the w^est than he issued, in conjunction with 
Licinius, the Csesar of the east, whose jurisdiction covered 
the European east, an edict proclaiming freedom to all 
christians within their dominions. It was published at 
Milan in 313. 

During the absence of Constantine in war with the 
Franks, Maximin, Augustus of the east, from hatred to 
Christianity made war upon Licinius. The issue of that 
conflict was his own defeat, followed by his death in the 
same year, 313. 

Licinius now as master of all the eastern empire 
assumed the attitude of competitor with Constantine for 
the dominion of the whole. He was w T orsted in the war 
waged in that cause, in 314, and constrained to cede the 
European east to Constantine. 

Eight years later Licinius, having deserted the cause 
of the Christians, concluded to try the fortune of w r ar at 
the head of the heathen interest. The war which ensued 
was clearly a trial of military strength between the 
Heathen and Christian parties in the empire. The two 
armies met near Adrianople, 324. Constantine displayed 
the banner of the cross, Licinius raised the old idolatrous 
standards of Rome. The issue of that hard fought battle. 
one of the most momentous in the world's history, was 
the overthrow of Licinius, and of the cause which he had 
adopted. Another, but a feeble attempt completed his 
ruin. To Heathenism the defeat was final. The empire 
came under the rule of the Christian leader. An edict 
of general toleration was issued. The next step was to 
recognize the churches as in their organization holding 



55 

relations to the new constitution of the civil government. 

Ecclesiastical tradition, reckoning fro.m the first under 
Nero, counts ten heathen persecutions, namely under 
Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius 
Severus. Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Dio- 
cletian. But that number is arbitrary. With equal jus- 
tice they may be said to be more or fewer, according as 
attention is confined to general persecutions, or extended 
to comprehend the local ; to those which were ordered 
by an emperor, or including those which he foiled to 
repress. Imperial general persecutions were few; local 
persecutions were of frequent occurrence in one quarter 
or another. 

Episcopal equality, defended by Cyprian in the middle 
of the third century, was suffering infringement even 
then; in the succeeding generation a new and higher 
rank among bishops, boldly claimed and received gene- 
ral recognition. Under the method of church extension 
then pursued, it was not easy to withhold an unequal 
weight of influence from the bishops of the large cities. 
At first the most important cities were Jerusalem, Anti- 
och, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. In course of time 
Jerusalem was overthrown, Corinth and Ephesus became 
relatively of less importance, while Alexandria and 
Carthage rose each to a proper distinction of its own. 
During the third century the largest and most influential 
churches were those of Antioch, Alexandria, Rome and 
Carthage. Several causes co-operated to confer a pre- 
dominant influence upon the churches in those chief 
cities ; the number of their congregations, the extent of 
their suburban missions, the talent developed by the 
great demands upon their bishops, and their place in 
relation to the imperial government, and commerce of 
the empire. A great number of cities not so important 
as these, were yet large enough to work similar effects in 
the history of the church. 

From the municipal principle of one church for one 
city and only one bishop for one church proceeded seve- 
ral effects at variance with ministerial parity. First, one 
bishop as the presiding officer over several pastors of city 
congregations, who could be only presbyters. Secondly, 



56 

a mission from a sreat city church to a neisrboriiiff town 
was at first a mere branch of the city church ; but when 
it increased to more than one congregation, its pastor 
became to its congregations what the bishop of the city 
was to the city congregations ; but that he should be 
still esteemed a dependant and inferior of the latter 
could not be avoided; and recognized as bishop, he was 
a bishop of humbler rank. Thirdly, there was strength 
and support expected by the churches in the smaller 
towns from such connection with the larger : and in 
Course of time many small country churches and bishops 
at first independent, applied for, and were accepted into 
such filial relations to some great city church. 

Thus, before the end of the third century, the juris- 
diction of some of the great city bishops extended very 
far. That of Rome included not only her proper mis- 
sions, but the greater part of central, and all the south 
of Italy, and .perhaps the adjoining islands Sicily, Sardi- 
nia, and Corsica. Carthage had also, become head of the 
churches in North Africa; Alexandria of most of those 
in Egypt, and Antioch, now the oldest of the large 
churches held a similar position in Syria and the further 
east. 

Consequently, a new rank was established among 
ministers, in those bishops over bishops in the jurisdiction 
of the metropolitan cities. Still it was a system not 
formally and legally established during the third century. 
The superior bishops were styled simply as bishops of 
the first seat, Primae sedis episcopi, or Primi, or Primates. 
Such a one was considered as having the right to convoke 
a council of the bishops of his province, and to preside 
in it; and, in the interval, the right of judicature in 
matters affecting any bishop of the province. 

Obviously, in those days, provincial councils tended 
to consolidate the metropolitan system in all its parts. 

A marked distinction was now made between the 
clergy (clerus) and the laity, (laid), the former being 
viewed as a sort of spiritual aristocracy. They were 
sometimes spoken of in terms of the JMosaic economy, as 
Priests and Levites. Ministers of the gospel were, at the 
great centres of population, about the beginning of the 



57 

fourth century, losing sight of their simple evangelical 
vocation, and taking upon them the features of a sacer- 
dotal order. A profession of sanctity was demanded of 
them above other men; and many things which were 
not sinful in other men wore held to be sinful in them. 

Among the opponents, whom Christianity had to 
encounter in argument, the ablest were still the Neo- 
Platonist philosophers, of whom by far the most learned 
and gifted were Plotinus and Porphyry. And it was 
Plotinus who gave its utmost completeness to that phi- 
losophy. His own work was done chiefly in our former 
period ; but hisiniiuenee against Christianity was stronger 
after his death, through some of his pupils. Plotinus 
lectured in various places, from Persia to Rome, and 
wrote many books, which were highly esteemed, and 
some of which still survive. He died in, or about the 
year 270. The Keo-Platonic sect had already spread 
over most of the civilized world ; and its style of think- 
ing as molded by Plotinus was that which opposed itself 
with most effect to the christian apologist, through the 
rest of the period. 

Porphyry of Tyre, a pupil of Plotinus, flourished 
between 260 and 305. Plis argument against Christianity 
was a large work, extending to fifteen books. It is no 
longer extant as a whole ; but portions of it remain as 
quotations in the writings of christians who responded 
to it. 

Of Hierocles, an electic philosopher, we learn chiefly 
from the notice taken of his book against Christianity 
by Laetantius, and the reply to it by Eusebius. It was 
composed during the final persecution, and called 
" Words of a truth-lover to the christians." Hierocles 
not only wrote against Christianity, but also bears the 
blame of having instigated that persecution which has 
branded the name of Diocletian. He was governor of 
Bithynia under that emperor. 

lamblichus of Chalcis, in Coelo Syria, wrote a work 
on -the life and philosophy of Pythagoras, in which he 
introduced arguments designed to resist the progress of 
Christianity. lamblichus enjoyed the highest philosophi- 
cal reputation in his time which was the first thirty years 
of the fourth centurv. 



58 

In the field of theological discussion the Alexandrian 
school still exerted the widest influence. Theological 
writers were divided for and against the doctrines of 
Origen, and later in the period, with more intensity, re- 
specting those of Arius. Latin writers were inferior, 
as compared with the Greek in analytical power, and 
subtlety of discrimination. Their theology was more 
practical, but ruder in its structure. Lack of specula- 
tion gave greater stability to their doctrines and style, 
and their thoughts turned more upon points of discipline 
and government. Tt was from Greece that Roman phi- 
losophy was derived, and from Greeks came also the first 
part of systematic theology. 

The principal christian authors in Latin were Coni- 
modianus, and Arnobius both of North Africa, and Lac- 
tantius who studied with Arnobius. Cominodianus, the 
earliest christian poet in Latin, was author of a poem on 
the evidences of Christianity, written about 270. Arno- 
bius, about 805 published .an apologetic work called a 
" Disputation against the Gentiles." The writings of 
Lactantius are of much more importance, and in more 
elegant Latin than any of his predecessors had been able 
to command. They are chiefly controversial, in defence 
of christian doctrine, against heathenism and heathen 
philosophy. Lactantius died between 325 and 350. 

Among errorists Paul of Samosato, bishop of Antioch, 
was charged with preaching a variety of monarchianism, 
similar to that of Sabellius, and with conduct otherwise 
unbecoming a minister of the gospel. In a council at 
Antioch 268 he was tried and deposed, but protected by 
Zenobia Queen of Palmyra, he continued in office. 
When Aurelian had defeated Zenobia 272, he con- 
strained Paul to give place to the bishop appointed by 
the council. 

In Egypt, a schism took place during the Diocletian 
persecution. Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis in the The- 
baid, for some cause which is not satisfactorily explained, 
broke off his connection with the bishop of Alexandria. 
Several other Egyptian bishops joined him, and resisted 
all attempts to bring them back to allegiance to Alexan- 
dria. It was one of several cases of resistance on the 



59 

part of parochial bishops to the aggressions of the metro- 
politan. 

In the Diocletian persecution, it was exacted of christ- 
ians to surrender their copies of the Scriptures to be 
destroyed. Those who submitted were counted among 
the lapsed, as Tradiiores. 

The most remarkable heresy of the last half of the 
third century came from the side of Persia, and consisted 
in a combination of some elements of Christianity with 
some of later Avestanism and of Buddhism. Its author 
was Mani, Manes, or Manichaeus, a Persian', who appeared 
as a religions teacher about 270. 

1. Mani taught the doctrine of two spiritual kingdoms 
of good and of evil, and also of one supreme power com- 
prehending both. Good was identified with light, evil 
with darkness. 

2. The kingdom of light was internally harmonious; 
that of darkness, in perpetual disorder, and internal war. 

3. The evil spirits assaulted the kingdom of light. 
The One Supreme God brought man into existence and 
bound him in matter that he might resist the forces of evil. 

4. Man was originally joined to the five pure ele- 
ments of nature, — fire, light, air, earth and water. But 
in the war with the demons and the impure elements, he 
was worsted, and held in fetters of matter. 

5. The Almighty sent the living spirit, an emanation 
from himself, who raised man once more to the kingdom 
of light. 

6. Meanwhile the powers of evil had succeeded in 
retaining a part of man's light-essence involved in mat- 
ter, an element which has to go through a process of 
purification and development towards liberation. 

7. To that end, the spirits of light still bound up with 
matter are through the process of generation into human 
nature, rendered conscious and intelligent, and by the 
mean? of religious purification, eliminated from matter 
in man, and restored to the realm of pure spirit, in the 
kingdom of light. 

8. This process is now going on. Meanwhile, the 
liberated souls are placed in the sun and moon, from 
from which they exert an influence to draw upwards to 



60 

themselves the spirits still connected with matter, by the 
process of evolution in vegetable and animal life. 

9. Matter, after being exsicated of all the elements of 
light and pure life, was to be reduced by fire to an inert 
mass. And souls who still submitted themselves to sin 
were to be banished forever to its inhospitable desolasion. 

10. Maui was regarded by his followers as the incar- 
nation of the Paraclete. All his writings were in their 
estimation, holy scripture. Only such parts of the New 
Testament as suited their views were accepted by him 
and his followers. They had also their exoteric and 
esoteric instructions, for two different, classes of their 
people, their Auditor.? and their Saints, or Elect. 

The Elect constituted their sacerdotal class, in the 
highest stage ot purification. The Auditors were their 
common members, who were taught that their imperfect 
righteousness could be raised to completeness by obtain- 
ing an interest in the superabundant righteousness of 
the Elect. 

From the Elect were chosen the presiding officers of 
the ManiehiBean church, the orders of which were first, 
Mani, (the embodied Paraclete), after his death repre- 
ted by a sacerdotal chief; second, twelve magistri ; and 
third, the seventy-two bishops of the Manichsean 
churches. 

After their founder's death, this sect found many 
adherents, especially in the East and in North Africa, 
although they suffered much persecution from both 
Persian and Roman authorities. Mani was himself put 
to death by order of King Baharam I., of Persia, some- 
time between 272 and 277. 

The principal theological question of the time still 
related to the Person of Christ; but now chiefly as a 
person in the Godhead, thereby involving discussion of 
the whole subject of the divine Trinity ; and that now 
more closely determined by the bearings of the Alexan- 
drian theology. 

By the beginning of the fourth century a large 
amount of property had come into the hands of christ- 
ians; and in some places their church edifices were of 
great elegance. No pictures or religious symbols were 



61 

allowed in them, although such were used on tombs, and 
on household utensils. In the catacombs are found the 
monogram of the name of Christ, the dove, the fish, the 
cross, and other christian symbols. And in christian 
worship and observances certain symbolical numbers 
were of frequent occurrence. 

THIRD PERIOD— 325 TO 1517 A. 1>. 

With the accession of Constantine to the undivided 
throne begins the third of the grand periods into which 
the history of the christian church, first united with the 
Roman empire as the state religion, in course of pro- 
gress, took to itself the features of Roman government, 
and when the Western empire fell, assumed its place of 
superiority among the nations; and when the Gospel 
was bound in fetters of human law. 

Within that long period, extending to the early part 
of the sixteenth century, various changes took place, 
marking several subordinate steps of progress or decline. 

I. 325—395. 

First of those sections is that of the rapid decline of 
Heathenism, in the end of which its principal rites were 
suppressed by law. When Christianity became the rul- 
ing religion Heathenism had no fortitude to withstand 
the disfavor of government ; and when its ceremonies 
were made unlawful it rapidly dwindled away. The 
emperors henceforth become the external defenders of 
church. 

With Constantine's victory at Adrianople, the last 
vestige of Diocletian's plan of government disappeared; 
a wiser, and a more effective one was constructed by the 
new emperor. While the sovereign was to be one, the 
division of territory was retained, under the names 
of the Prefectures of Gaul, of Italy, of Illyricnm, 
and of the East, over which were appointed officers called 
Prefects. The Prefectures were divided into Dioceses, 
which were governed by Vicars ( Viearii), and the Dioceses, 
into provinces, under the administration of Rectores, or 
Presides: and each Province was divided into smaller 



62 

districts with a corresponding distribution of civil offi- 
cers. A similar disposal was made of the army, 
under its own proper commanders. And honors and 
titles of honor were graduated in like manner, from the 
Emperor down to the humblest who had claim to dis- 
tinction. The reins of these ramified authorities were 
to be gathered together in the hands one monarch whose 
office was to be hereditary. 

In this system Christianity took its place, and adapted 
its government to the arrangements for the state. Dur- 
ing the preceding fifty or sixty years, the order of the 
church had been growing into such a shape that no act 
of violence was needed to effect conformity. Yet it took 
some time to complete the correspondence, on the part of 
the church, and as respects the distribution of her higher 
jurisdictions, it was never precisely fitted, though every 
where approximate to the civil. A general council at 
Constantinople, in 381, established the superiority of the 
bishops of a diocese over the bishops of the Provinces 
within the Diocese, and of the Diocesan synods over the 
Provincial synods; and both were regularly appointed 
church courts, and met at the call of their respective 
superior bishops. 

The head of that church system of government was 
the emperor, who alone convoked general councils, and 
and [>resided in them, personally, or by his commissioner, 
and gave the force of law to their acts. The first eccle- 
siastical council called by an emperor was the synod of 
Aries in 314. And the first general council of the church 
met at Nice in Bithynia, in 325, at the command, and 
under the presidency of Constantine. 

The order of ranks, in the ministry recognized under 
the new constitution were those of Exarchs, otherwise, 
Archbishops, ruling each a Diocese of the empire ; second, 
Metropolitans, also called sometimes, Archbishops, 
ruling each over a province, thirdly Bishops ruling over 
smaller sees consisting of various congregations, minis- 
tered to by Presbyters; and fourth the Presbyter pastors 
of conorea'ations : and within the congregation its Dea- 
cons and other Parochial officers. 



63 

Presbyters and the lower clergy, according to this 
system were no longer to be chosen by the people of their 
respective churches, but appointed by the bishop. The 
ejection of a bishop depended mostly on the other 
bishops of the province. Still the consent of the people 
was required; and especially in the West, was often 
decisive, if not imperative. 

Constantine died in 337, having received christian 
baptism only a few days before. He was baptized between 
Easter and Pentecost, and died on the latter. His sons 
Constantine, Oonstantius and Oonstans, divided the 
empire among them ; but in the course of successive 
civil wars, it came in 350 into the hands of Constantius 
alone. In 361 Julian, a nephew of Constantine I., came 
to the throne. An admirer of heathen literature and 
philosophy, Julian attempted to re-establish polytheism, 
and the old heathen worship. But his reign was too 
brief to effect bis designs. He fell in battle with the 
Persians in 263. Jovian who succeeded him was a zeal- 
ous christian, in bis brief reign of seven months, he 
repealed all the lavs of Julian adverse to Christianity. 
After bis death, the empire was again divided into East- 
ern and Western, with much irregularity for about fifteen 
years. In 379, Theodosius became emperor of the East. 
In the West disorder continued thirteen years longer, 
until 392, when Theodosius united the whole empire 
under his own hand, and held it until his death in 395. 
By his legislation all kinds of idolatry were forbidden 
under severe panishrnents. The emperor Constantius 
had prohibited sacrifice ; but bis law could not be carried 
into effect at the centres of concourse, Rome and Alexan- 
dria. After Theodosius interdicted the payment of their 
expenses from the public treasury sacrifices were no 
longer observed. 

It is in the beginning of the fourth century that we 
first come in sight of monasticism, as a recognized style 
of religious life within the christian church. Not that 
the church ever originated a monastic order, but that the 
body of christian people esteemed that way of life as one 
of eminent sanctity. Its institutions organized by other 
means came to the church for sanction, and generally 



64 

received it; although, from the first they were more in 
the spirit of Buddhism than of Christianity. Monasti- 
cism is an essential institution of Buddhism, but not of the 
Gospel of Christ. At the beginning of the fourth cen- 
tury, Buddhism was in its prime, and pouring its influen- 
ces in upon the population of the eastern empire in 
various ways. 

Asceticism had been practiced, to some extent, as 
early as the second century ; but then, and during the 
first half of the third, ascetics had lived among other 
christians, without external distinction. During the 
Decian persecution, some christians of Egypt fled to the 
desert, and there gave themselves up to austerities. 
They were called ipy/nirae, Eremites, or povaxoi, monks. 
Public attention was turned to the subject in 311, by the 
appearance of the hermit Anton}- in a procession in 
Alexandria. He had begun to preach his doctrines as 
early as 305, and found many to admire and imitate him. 
After a number of hermits had been brought together, 
a place of habitation was founded for them by Pacho- 
mius, where they could dwell together, on the island 
Tabenna in the Nile. Soon afterwards similar societies 
were formed in the deserts of Sketis and of ISTitria in 
Egypt, in the desert near Gaza, and elsewhere in Pales- 
tine and Syria. Thence the example extended to Arme- 
nia and Asia Minor, chiefly in desert places ; but ere 
the end of the fourth century, sometimes also in the 
neighborhood of cities. Some ascetics lived solitary ; 
others in associations according to some common rule. 
Such an association was called xotvofiuvs, or pdv6pa^\w 
Greek, and Claustrum in Latin ; a member of it was. 
xocisoftiTTjz, or -uvooirr^, 2nd the president, M^^c, or 
' Apxepavdpizrjz. Monachism, as a system, came into the 
church, did not grow out of it. Laymen, not ministers, 
were the first monks. It was introduced by individuals, 
not by church order. But to christians of the fourth 
century the practice seemed eminently holy, and monks 
held in such esteem, that ere the end of the century 
clergy of the highest rank belonged to their number. 

Questions relatiug to church order and doctrine were 
chiefly the schism of the Donatists and the heresy of 
Arius. 



65 

The fanaticism of seeking persecution was reproved 
and resisted by Caeeilianus who was elected bishop of 
Carthage in 311. A strong party opposed him, and get 
up Majorinus and afterwards Donatus as their bishops. 

The controversy continued long. In 313 the case was 
submitted to the emperor Constantine, who appointed 
three Gallic bishops with the bishop of Rome to investi- 
gate the matter. The decision was unfavorable to the 
Donatists, who expressed their dissatisfaction. The 
emperor then in 314, called a council to meet at Aries, 
whose decision was also adverse to them. Notwithstand- 
ing, the party maintained its existence in Africa until 
that province was overrun by the Vandals. 

The Meletian schism also continued in Egypt, and 
several persons in different quarters protested against the 
growing prelatical aristocracy. Such were Aerius, 
Jovinian, and Vigilantius. But the great body of the 
church was well pleased with the new relations to the 
state, and with the hierarchical order, by which it seemed 
so well balanced with the civil authorities. 

The most momentous doctrinal controversy was that 
concerning Arius. Origen had taught that the Divine 
Logos proceeds from the will of God the Father con- 
tinually and from all eternity, that he is inferior to God 
and different as to substance. Dionysius at one time 
taught that the relation between Christ and God was that 
of eternal creation. He afterwards saw his error and 
withdrew from it. But Arius, a pupil of the Syrian 
school, and a Presbyter in Alexandria, boldly accepted 
that position, and defined it in his own way, teaching that 
the Divine Logos was the only created of the Father, 
that all other tilings were created by him, that he is per- 
fect, and as like God as a created being can be. 

This view was condemned by Alexander, bishop of 
Alexandria, in 318 ; but many bishops in Syria and Asia 
Minor declared themselves in favor of it. The contro- 
versy soon extended to the whole East. Attempts were 
made by the emperor to bring it to an end, through means 
of friendly correspondence with leading men, but with- 
out effect. Finally he called a council of the whole 
church to meet at Nice in Bithynia in 325 for the purpose 



66 

of settling the dispute. The cause of the bishop of 
Alexandria was pled by Athanasius, then a deacon of 
that church, and by others. Arius was defended by 
a strong party, but was condemned as guilty of heresy. 
And the faith of the church was defined to be that the 
Divine Logos is uncreated. The council also drew up a 
brief confession of orthodox faith. In that symbol 
called the Nieene Creed were summed up the results of 
theological discussion so far as then settled. 

The council also undertook to terminate the schism 
of Meletius, and the difference between the practice of 
the Eastern and Western churches in the observation of 
haster, by giving judgment in the former case against 
Meletius and deciding the latter in favor of the West. 

Touching the number of bishops assembled at Nice 
statements differ. It is commonly given as 318. Most 
of the Avian members submitted to the doctrinal decis- 
ions, though with reluctance, on some points, especially 
on the consubstantiality of the Father and Son in Deity. 
A minority preferred to say that the Son was of nature 
similar to the Father. Instead of bp.o6oaco^ rw narpt they 
defended the doctrine of bfiocooaco^ rw jrazfjc, and on that 
Semi-Arian ground took their stand in opposition to the 
council, and obtained many adherents, chiefly in the East. 
In the course of ten years they w T ere strong enough to 
depose Athanasius from the bishopric of Alexandria to 
which he had been elevated, after the council. He found 
refuge in the West. 

On this question a council was called in 347 to meet 
Sardica; but it divided into two councils and accom- 
plished nothing. After long continued controversy, the 
emperor Theodosius called a general council to meet at 
Constantinople in 381. One hundred and fifty bishops 
assembled. There the Nicene creed was revised ; its 
doctrine of the Trinity confirmed, and articles added 
touching heresies which had arisen since it was framed. 
In this later form the creed became the universally recog- 
nized symbol of orthodoxy. Pure Arianism subsequently 
declined within the empire, but maintained itself among 
the Germanic nations. Semi-Arianism prevailed among 
the Eastern churches ; while the Nicene doctrines were 



67 

accepted in the Western empire. Antioch as the head 
of the Syrian school became deeply leavened with semi- 
Arianism, Alexandria continued long to he the chief 
school of orthodoxy. Theologians took their stand with 
one or the other. 

Theodosius was the last who held the reins of the 
united empire. Upon his death in 895, it was divided 
between his two sons, Arcadins taking the East, and 
Honorius the West. In the same year the Huns upon 
the North broke into the provinces of Panonia and 
Moesia, and the Goths took up arms for invasion of 
Thrace, Macedonia and Greece, which they effected next 
year. Ere that time the church government under the 
constitution devised by Constantine had become solidified 
into an organic self-sustaining structure imbued with the 
spirit of a new and vigorous life, to which the civil gov- 
ernment had nothing to correspond. The latter began 
to break apart into irreparable decay ; the form to 
increase towards completeness of maturity. 

II. 395—451. 

Another period of church history, which ought to be 
studied by itself, is that, which extends from the death of 
Theodosius to the general council of Chalcedon. It was 
within this period that the doctrines of the church, defined 
by the ancient classic fathers, were digested into a philo- 
sophic system. It was also that during which the Arian 
Goths, Suevi and Vandals made themselves masters of 
the sea coast countries of the western empire, and the 
heathen Franks and Saxons took possession of Northern 
Gaul and South Britain. 

Britain was abandoned by Roman arms about 428, 
and Anglo-Saxons commenced their settlements there in 
449. Ere that date the Franks had established for them- 
selves an independent government in Gaul. Spain from 
the beginning of the fifth century had been overrun by 
Suevi and Vandals, and was now completely given up by 
the emperor of the West. In 427 the Vandals, worsted 
by the Suevi in Spain, passed over to Africa, and con- 
quered the whole of that province before 439. They also 
reduced Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and the Balearic islands. 



68 ' 

The Alemanni and Burgundians bad taken possession of 
Helvetia, and districts adjoining, and the Goths, of South- 
ern France. At the middle of the fifth century little 
remained to the Western empire beyond the confines of 
Italy. Panonia, Dalrnatia and TsToncura had been taken 
by the Eastern empire. The Eastern empire itself had, 
in 428, divided Armenia with the Persians ; in 441, it had 
been ravaged by the Huns under Attila from the Danube 
to Constantinople ; and in 446 had submitted to pay a 
yearly tribute for the privilege of peace. The period was 
covered entirely by the two successive reigns of Arcadius 
(395—408) and Theodosius II., (408—450), emperors of 
the East, parallel with those of Honorius (395 — 423) and 
of Valentinian III. (423 — 455), emperors of the West. 

Although the Western empire was, by the middle of 
the fifth century, broken to pieces, and only a fragment 
of it remaining under the old dominion, the church stood 
firm, and had received a large addition to her subjects. 
The old inhabitants of the provinces were not removed, 
or extinguished; they were only subdued and governed 
by German invaders instead of by Romans ; while the 
invaders for the most part, professed Christianity 
and acknowledged the jurisdiction of the church. The 
old population was mostly orthodox; the Germanic 
incomers mostly Arian. Among the Goths that doctrine 
was taught by Ulphilas in the fourth century. A Gothic 
bishop was present at the council of Nice. The Bur- 
gundians, in 413, came into the church with profession 
of orthodoxy; but about 450 adopted Arianism. 

As a general thing those Arian masters did not inter- 
fere with the religion of. their orthodox subjects ; but the 
Visigoths in the South of Fiance, and the Vandals in 
Africa were exceptions to the rule. 

Christianinity received an additional load of corrup- 
tion from those imperfectly converted nations. During 
this time, the British isles were cut oif from the juris- 
diction of Rome, by the withdrawal of Roman arms, by 
the interposition of heathen Franks in the North of Gaul 
and also in the succeeding period by the establishment 
of heathen Saxons in the East and South of Britain. 
Meanwhile the old British churches maintained their 



69 

ground in the Southwest of Scotland ; from which 
Patricius, about 430, carried the gospel into Ireland. It 
spread with great rapidity over the island, and Armagh 
soon became the seat of a bishop. 

On the extreme East, christians were subjected to 
much oppression under rule of the Persian kings. From 
343 a persecution was commenced in that quarter which 
lasted thirty-five years, in which thousands of christian 
people with their ministers were put to death. It was 
relaxed about 398 ; but revived in 418 and continued 
until nearly the date of the council of Chalcedon. 

Subsequently having adopted the doctrines of Nes- 
torius, Persian christians, finding themselves under cen- 
sure of the churches in the West, and separating from 
them and their relations to the Roman empire, received 
protection from Persia, as loyal subject. It was not 
however until 478 that the whole Persian church declared, 
by formal action, in favor of RTestorianism.- 

In that part of Armenia, which in 428 came under 
Persian rule, attempts were persisted in, for more than 
forty years, to establish the doctrines of the Avesta 
instead of those of the gospel. In 485 that effort was 
abandoned as hopeless. In that same century Mesrop 
formed the Armenian alphabet and translated the Bible 
into the popular tongue. 

Theodosius II., emperor of the East issued, in 423, 
an edict in which he expressed his belief that no heathen 
were to be found within his dominions. 

In the process of framing such an expression of christ- 
ian belief as should be satisfactory to the church, it was 
impossible to avoid controversy. It was by controversy 
that the work had to be done. The Arian and Semi- 
Arian controversy led to the clearest statement of ortho- 
doxy on the subject of the Trinity. 

In the Nicene Creed, as revised and extended at Con- 
stantinople, were summed up the best results of previous 
theological discussion. That was the work chiefly ot 
Greek theologians. Latin writers make comparatively 
little figure in it. Law, civil and moral, was the field ot 
thought in which those who spoke the Latin tongue had 
proved themselves superior to all rivals. And now a 



70 

work remained to be done for the church which they 
were better than any others qualified to do. That was 
twofold : first, definition of the scriptural doctrine of 
man's relations to God ; and second, the complete system- 
atic and practical statement and exposition of the whole 
body of truth as then defined or accepted. And that was 
also effected through controversy. 

When Alaric the Gotli was threatening Rome in the 
year 410, Pelagius, a native, it is thought, of Britain, and 
who had been residing in Rome, was among the refugees 
to Sicily. He thence proceeded to Africa accompanied 
by his friend Ccelestius and others. From Africa he soon 
afterwards went to Palestine leaving Ccelestius at Car- 
thage. Ccelestius applying to be ordained Presbyter, 
was charged with errors tending to exalt unscriptu rally 
human free will. He was excluded from the church at 
Carthage, and went to Ephesus. His doctrines were 
understood to be the same as those taught by Pelagius. 
Accordingly, Pelagius was himself accused before the 
bishop of Jerusalem, within whose jurisdiction he was 
then residing, and afterwards in 415 before the synod of 
Diospolis, as Lydda in Palestine was then called, without 
procuring his condemnation Other councils, in various 
quarters, rejected his doctrines. Zosimus bishop of Rome 
first approved, and afterwards condemned them. But 
they also found acceptance and defence, especially in the 
East. In the West their principal advocate was Julian 
of Eclanum in Italy. 

Those theologians held that man's moral nature 
received no injury in the fall of Adam ; that man is now 
born, as fully as Adam was made, able to do the will of 
God; that all sin consists in the intelligent choice of 
evil; and that in order to turn from sin unto righteous- 
ness nothing is needed but a change of purpose on the 
part of the sfnner. A higher degree of blessedness and 
greater facility in attaining it are accessible through 
christian sacraments and instruction. As the law was 
formerly given to facilitate the attainment of goodness, 
so latterly, the gospel and example of Christ, and par- 
ticular operations of grace. The Divine purpose for 
man's salvation is founded on the Divine foreknowledge 



71 

of human action ; and makes no demand which man has 
not full ability to comply with. 

Among the opponents of Pelagius were Jerome and 
Augustine. The latter, especially, in this controversy, 
wrought out those statements of the doctrines of grace 
which lie at the foundation of orthodox theology. The 
views of Augustine were ecclesiastically confirmed by 
the African synods, and the Western church generally. 
Pelagianism, under the name of Ccelestius, was con- 
demned at the general council of Ephesus in 431, 
although the Augustinian doctrines of grace and pre- 
destination were not adopted by the Eastern christians. 

Pelagianism is the root of a number of heresies within 
the field of Anthropology, like Monarchianism in that 
of theology. Under the head of theology error lies on 
the one hand to Monarchianism, on the other to Poly- 
theism ; under that of Anthropology, in the direction 
of Pelagianism, or Fatalism. Ancient orthodoxy lay 
between the extremes, although not orthodox for that 
reason, but for accordance with scripture and christian 
experience. It was expressed in the creed for Theology, 
and by Augustine for Anthropology. 

After the action of the council, complete Pelagianism 
ceased to be professed to any great extent, while an inter- 
mediate ground between that doctrine and Augustinian- 
ism, which may be called semi-Pelagian, was taken by 
many of the churches in the east. It was also accepted 
in some places in the West, as introduced by John Cas- 
sian a pupil of Chrysostom. 

Augustine was a native of Africa, born at Tagaste in 
Numidia, about 354, studied and practiced the profession 
of rhetoric, was not converted until over thirty-three 
years of age, became bishop of Hippo in 395, and died 
in 429. His writings were numerous, but his great work, 
stating and defending the essential doctrines of Christ- 
ianity is his " De Civitate Dei." 

The controversy touching the sonship of Christ in 
Godhead was followed by one concerning the relation of 
the Divine Logos to the human nature of Jesus. 

Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, from 362 to about 
392, holding that natural man consists of three consti- 



72 

tuents, body, spirit and soul, taught that Jesus had no 
human soul, and that the Divine Logos took its place. 
Some theologians were the more disposed to accpt that 
view, that they believed the soul of man to be a part of 
of God. In that case, if it was proper to speak of an 
ordinary man's mother as the mother of his soul, it 
might be equally proper to speak of the Virgin Mary as 
the mother of God, Osotoxoc;. And that fell in with, and 
sustained a practice already common in many congrega- 
tions. 

Apollinarianism was rejected by the general council at 
Constantinople in 381. It had contributed however to 
that element of definition, which recognized the perfect 
humanity of the Savior. 

In making clear distinction between the human and 
divine in Christ, some felt constrained to condemn the 
growing practice of paying reverence to the Virgin 
Mary, as the mother of God. Such was the ground 
taken by I^estorius, who was made bishop of Constan- 
tinople in 428. Dorotheus, one of his clergy when 
preaching one day, denied that it was proper to call Mary 
deorozoz. The congregation raised an outcry of disap- 
probation, and left the house. Nestorius defended the 
presbyter. Others of his clergy deserted him ; and some 
of them he deposed. The question soon became one of 
general concern. 

The doctrine defended by Nestorius was that of the 
separate existence of the divine and human natures in 
Christ. And according to his view, to speak of Mary as 
mother of the divine nature was blasphemy. 

Nestorianism was condemned by the general council 
at Ephesus in 431, and Nestorius was doposed. The 
minority was so strong, and both parties so violent that 
appeal was made to the emperor. In the end Nestorius 
was banished to an Oasis of upper Egypt, about 
435. He died in exile. But a large part of the Eastern 
church chiefly that lying to the East of the Euphrates, 
sustained his'doctrines. In 498, they were accepted as 
the professed creed of the churches in Persia and the 
farther East, which thereby separated for ever from the 
Catholic connection. 






73 

In the controversy with Nestorius, some disputants, 
at whose head was Cyril bishop of Alexandria, defended 
the opposite doctrine to an extreme. The successor of 
Cyril in the see of Alexandria, Dioscorus. from 444 till 
451, was still more violent in the same cause. Eutyehes, 
an abbot in Constantinople, was in 448, condemned by a 
local synod in that city for teaching that the human in 
Christ was so merged in the divine as to make only one 
nature. A letter from Leo I. of Rome to Flavian of 
Constantinople approved of that action and defined what 
he thought the true doctrine of the two natures in Christ. 

The censure of Eutyehes bore hard upon Dioscorus 
also. A general council was summoned to meet at 
Ephesusnextyear(449). Dioscorus, as president procured 
a resolution in favor of Eutyehes, and the Alexandrian 
doctrine, and an act of deposition against Flavian. 
From its violence that council was branded as the Rob- 
ber synod; but it was sustained by the emperor, Theo- 
dosius II. Next year Theodosius died. The new 
emperor, Mareian, took the other side, and strongly dis- 
approved of the conduct and doctrines of Dioscorus. A 
new general council was called, to meet at Chalcedon in 
451. It is counted the fourth. 

Dioscorus was deposed, Eutyehes was condemned, 
Nestorianiam was also rejected, Leo's letter to Flavian 
was approved, while the council gave their own statement 
of the doctrine of "One Christ in two natures, the two 
natures united, without confusion, without conversion, 
inseparably and perpetually. "' 

The council also recognized the existing Metropolitan 
and Patriarchal ranks of bishops, and sanctioned the lat- 
ter as a higher rank, and as endued with higher powers 
of jurisdiction. At that date the Patriarchs were five; 
those of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Autioch and 
Jerusalem. Reference is also made, in the canons of the 
council, to the Patriarchs of the two imperial cppitals as 
entitled to higher honor than the rest. The great church 
of Carthage was now humbled to the earth by the con- 
quest of the Vandals. 

Both forms of the creed of Nice and of Constantino- 
ple were confirmed; as that of the 318 fathers of Nice, 



74 

and of the 150 fathers of Constantinople, and Nestorian 
and other variant doctrines, which had arisen in the 
interval, were condemned by re-statement of doctrines 
professed, or implied in those symbols. 

That council also confirmed certain canons of five 
provincial councils, namely of Ancyra 315, of Neo- 
Csesarea in Pontus, 315 or 316, of Gangra, between 325 
and 341, of Antioch in Syria, 341, and ot Laodicea, 
somewhere about 365. 

Recapitulation of controversies. 

The Person of Christ is the first and cardinal point 
of christian doctrine. The principal controversies con- 
cerning it are 

1. With Judaism, establishing the sufficiency of 
Christ in himself as the savior, and his true Godhead. 

2. With Docetae, in defence of his true humanity. 

3. Of his divine nature as related to God the Father, 
and the Holy Spirit, as well as to the whele system of 
the universe ; discussed in the theories of Gnosticism 
and the debates concerning Montanus ; and the subse- 
quent system of the Manichees. 

4. With theories of Monarchianism — Humanitarian, 
Patripassian, Sabellian. 

5. With those which sprang out of the the theology 
of Origen, especially that of Arius. 

6. With the Semi-Arians. 

7. With the Apollinarian doctrine on one side and 
the Xestorian on the other; touching the relations of the 
divine to the human in Christ. 

8. And with that of EutycRes" and Dioscorus. Ques- 
tions of anthropological doctrine were brought out 
chiefly as related to the prime question of Christ, but 
also in treating points of discipline, controversies on the 
subject of the lapsed, on the schisms of Novatian, Felicis- 
.simus, Donatus, until the rise of Peiagianism. 

9. The rejection of Peiagianism left behind the more 
widespread and enduring heresy of Semi-pelagianism. 

So far, christian controversies were marked by fea- 
tures of ancient classical thinking, even when dealing 
with oriental speculation; from the council of Nice to 
that of Chalcedon is the golden a^e of Patristic litera- 



75 

ture. Those which followed, for several hundred years, 
were in the spirit of the mediaeval. 

Christian sacraments and originally simple customs 
were now surrounded with a parade of ceremonial forms, 
pictures were introduced into the churches, not as 
objects of worship, hut as helps to piety, and some things 
were retained from the old state religion, and as con- 
verted to Christian meaning of the plea that people 
accustomed to see them, woald thereby be attracted to 
come to church. Preaching, in the fifth century, had 
also assimilated in some respects to the character of 
secular harangues, and in some of the city churches, at 
least, it was not unusual for the congregations to give 
noisy demonstration of their disapproval or applause. 
The memory of martyrs had come to receive such a 
degree of veneration that preachers would appeal to 
them in their sermons, and invoke their intercession with 
God. Their relics were collected and deposited in 
churches. The Virgin Mary received peculiar rever- 
ence : and the cross, all along honored as a symbol, 
had now become an object of idolatrous veneration. 
That feeling was intensified after Helena, the mother of 
Constantine, had discovered, as she thought, the true 
cross, on which the Savior died. In the fifth century the 
crucifix, that is, the cross with a figure representing the 
Saviour suspended upon it, began to be used. 

It was aiso during this period that the clergy began 
to wear a peculiar costume, while engaged in divine ser- 
vice : and after heathen fashion in some of the churches 
artificial lights were used in the day time. Burning of 
incense was also introduced. 

Singing in responses was first practiced at Antioch, 
spread to other {daces in the east, and was transferred to 
the west by Ambrose. 

Festival days increased in number, and some formerly 
of only local observance, became general, or were 
appointed to be held with more regularity. In the west 
the 25 of December was appointed by Julius bishop of 
Rome between 237 and 352, to be observed as the birth- 
day of the Lord. From Rome the practice extended to 
different provinces, to Antioch about 376 and to Alex- 



76 

andria about 430. Heathen literature and science bad 
still their devotees. At Athens and Alexandria the poly- 
theistic schools of philosophy were still in existence. 

By the middle of the fifty century the schools of the 
church had begun to decline, with the interest in educa- 
tion which maintained them. Monks had already 
increased enormously, and their extravagances and bar- 
barism had become the disgrace of the christian name. 
The emperor Valens attempted to restrain their increase 
by authority, but without effect. 'Some of them were 
men of learning, but as a general thing they were ignor- 
ant, despised learning, and wielded a powerful influence 
against it. To them, more than to Goth and Vandal, 
was the degeneracy of public intelligence due. The 
stoppage of education bears its fruit not immediately, but 
needs for it only one generation. 

As early as the second century tales had been fabri- 
cated of the Savior and of his apostles, and heathen 
prophecies of Him and his work, either fabricated or in- 
terpolated, as in the case of the apocryphal books of the 
New Testament, and the Siblyline oracles. The most 
remarkable of such productions were the books called the 
Clementines. They consist of two epistles addressed to 
the apostle James at Jerusalem, and twenty homilies pro- 
fessing to be the doctrinal and polemical discourses of 
the apostle Peter. Clement bishop of Rome appears as 
the author. They are thought to have been composed at 
Rome about the end of the second century. Of these 
homilies there is an epitome also in Greek. There are 
other writings of the same kind ascribed to Clement, 
especially the Recognitions, which we have in a Latin 
translation, made by Rufinus who died in 410, as a 
connected narrative in ten books. Among the manu- 
scripts found in the desert of Nitria, which are now 
in the British Museum there is an imprinted Syrian 
translation of the Clementines, which is said to differ 
greatly from both the Greek and Latin. The subject 
seems to have been a theme of religious romance upon 
which successive writers felt free to compose variations. 

To the same period with the translations of the 
Recognitions are the Apostolic Constitutions probably to 



\ 



77 

he referred. That collection of ecclesiastical rules is put 
forth as the work of the apostles, collectively, who also 
speak in their own names separately of what they were 
taught by the Lord. It is found in use at the end of the 
fifth century, and no mention ot it occurs earlier than 
the end of the fourth. By gross anachronisms much of 
it is convicted of forgery. The Apostolic canons, a 
smaller collection of similar kind, came also into use 
towards the end of the fifth century, and is obnoxious to 
the same charge. 

Many of the evils of the time were due to the haste 
with which multitudes of half converted heathen were 
received into christian communion upon simple profes- 
sion, made in many cases only because their kings had 
been converted. After the full establishment of Christ- 
ianity as the state religion, and the profession of heathen- 
ism was made unlawful, it came to be the practice of the 
church to comprehend all the population of the empire 
as in some shape or other its proper charge. The strict 
rules ot the early christians touching admission to their 
communion were thus done away, or rendered inopera- 
tive. It was a stupendous effort, for which the early 
church was called upon, — the regeneration of a world 
lying in iniquity, such deep and almost hopeless iniquity. 
It is not strange that the human agency was sometimes 
at fault, that mistakes were made, and that some ot the 
overflowing corruption invaded her own bounds. The 
subject of wonder is that the good was not entirely 
swamped in the billows of evil raging on every side. 
Among the christian writings of that time copious evi- 
dence is found of warm scriptural piety, and most of the 
acts of councils testify to the same purport, as well as 
the lives of many devoted men and women. 

III. 451—607. 

Another section of Church History is very distinctly 
marked by important changes between the council of 
Chalcedon and the death of Boniface III. bishop of 
Rome, that is from 451 to 607. It is the period of rivalry 
for dominion in the church between the Patriarchs of 
Constantinople and of Rome. At the council of Chalce- 



don they had been recognized as entitled to higher honor 
than the rest. From that date it became an object of 
ambition with both to secure each for his own see the 
honor of sole superiority. The Roman Patriarch had 
the advantage in that his capital was possessed of the 
older prestige and associations. On the other had, dur- 
ing most of the period Constantinople was the sole capital 
of all the dominion that remained to the empire. But 
the east was divided among four Patriarchs ; in the west 
there was only one. The Roman Patriarch had no 
Patriarchs in the west to look to him as superior. The 
Patriarch at Constantinople was recognized as higher in 
honor than the three other Patriarchates of the east; it 
was not unnatural that he should wish to add the Patri- 
arch at Pome to the list. One sovereign, or universal 
bishop, with four Patriarchates was neeeded to complete 
the system of church government after the model of the 
state. The eastern domain of Christianity was by far 
the most extensive, and populous. But the Roman Patri- 
arch had already learned to add some of the duties of a 
civil ruler to his ecclesiastical functions. Rome was still 
the imperial city in the eyes of western nations, and the 
claim of apostolic descent had more weight in that quar- 
ter than in the east, where all the principal churches held 
to it. Notwithstanding the difficulties in his way,, it was 
the Patriarch at Constantinople who succeeded in having 
his rank of universal bishop first recognized by imperial 
authority. Rome then condemned the iniquity of episco- 
pal ambition, 

The cruelty of the usurping emperor Phocas alien- 
ated from him all good men in Constantinople. He 
received approval from Gregory I,, bishop of Rome, and 
from Boniface who was afterwards raised to that dignity. 
Boniface solicited and obtained from Phocas the transfer 
of the title of univeral to the see of Rome. Boniface 
TIL became Pope in 607, and died before the end of that 
year. Eastern prelates did not admit the validity of that 
act of a usurper; and the alienation between the two 
great Patriarchs became wider than before. 

In the state, the period thus defined was no less 
momentous. After their defeat at Chalous in 451, the 



79 

Huns fell back upon Italy, and the last remnant of the 
western empire was spared for a few years only by the 
death of Attila. In 455, the Vandals crossed over from 
Africa to Italy, took Rome and plundered it. Until 472 
the holders of nominal empire in that quarter were set 
up by German leaders. Finally in 476, Odoacer, king- 
of the Herulians, and leader of the German troops in 
Roman pay, assumed the sovereignty himself under the 
title of King of Italy. In 492, Odoacer was overthrown, 
and the Gothic kingdom of Italy set up by Theodoric. 
That kingdom was extinguished by the forces of the 
eastern empire under command of Belisarius in 539, and 
afterwards of Parses. Italy thereby became a Byzantine 
province, until the invasion of the Lombards in 568, 
when it was divided between them and the eastern 
empire; the capital of the former being Pavia, and the 
seat of the Greek exarch, Ravenna. Rome had ceased 
to be of any general political importance. 

In Gaul the Franks secured supreme dominion. The 
Visigoths, whom they drove out of the south of that 
country in 507 had before that date subdued the Suevi, 
and set up the Gothic kingdom of Spain. The Saxons 
in Britain had established their dominion over all the 
best of England, and driven the Romanized Britons to 
the north and extreme west. 

On the other hand, the Vandals in Africa and Sicily 
were reduced by the arms of Belisarius and those 
countries annexed to the eastern empire. 

In Constantinople, the imperial authority after 454 
passed through a succession of feeble hands, until Justin- 
ian who, from 527 to 565, by the wisdom of his legal 
digests, and the success of his arms, went far towards 
a restoration of the imperial dignity. His successors 
until 602 were good men, but did not maintain the same 
course of prosperity. Mauritius, in 602, was murdered 
with his family, by the centurion Phocas, who in a 
mutiny of the soldiers had usurped the throne. 

From Apostolic times the church needed, and pos- 
sessed certain rules whereby those who joined her com- 
munion were to regulate their conduct. The wisdom of 
the early fathers increased the number. To these were 



80 

added the decisions of councils. Collections -were sub- 
sequently made of such. In the fifth century we find 
mention of the Apostolical Constitutions, and the Apos- 
tolical canons. In the sixth century, appeared the col- 
lection of Dionysius Exiguus, in the west, and of Johan- 
nes Scholasticus, in the east, laying the foundations upon 
which afterwards arose the structure of the canon law. 

In the history of theologj' the principal feature of the 
time was the prolonged Monophysite controversy. The 
couucil of Chalcedon, after deposing Dioscorus from the 
Patriarchate of Alexandria, appointed Proterius in his 
room. But a large party in Egypt refused to acknowl- 
edge the new bishop, or the doctrine of the council. 
They denied the existence of two natures in Christ, or 
rather, held that the two natures, human and divine, are 
so united as to constitute but one nature, yet without 
conversion of one into the other and without confusion 
of both. Various names were given them, but the most 
common was that expressive of their doctrine of oneness 
of nature in the Savior, Movo^ualrac, while they called 
their opponents Juo^>ua"iTat, or At{pualio.t. The headquar- 
ters of the controversj' were Antioch and Alexandria, the 
two great theological schools of the east. Both parties 
carried violence to an extreme, disgraceful to their christ- 
ian profession. Emperors several times stepped in to 
allay the ferment, but with little success. Zeno Isauri- 
cus, in 452, issued a creed called the Henoticon, which 
he thought both parties might agree upon. Instead of 
effecting union, it raised a new subject of dispute. The 
bishop of Rome, and the western churches in general 
took part in opposition to the Monophysites. Justinian 
defended the council of Chalcedon, but endeavored to 
restore unity and peace. The empress, Theodora, favored 
the Monophysites, and also professed to labor for con- 
ciliation. Neither of them had much success. After 
several fruitless attempts, the emperor called a general 
council to meet at Constantinople in 553. That council 
condemned Monophysite doctrine as heresy. In that 
action Pelagius I. of Rome coincided, but thereby created 
a tedious schism in the west. In the east the result was 
a final secession of a great number of churches covering 



81 

a belt of country from the northern borders of Armenia, 
through Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, south- 
ward to the southern extremities of Ethiopia. It did 
much to reduce the importance of both Alexandria and 
Antioch, as schools of theology, a loss, which they never 
retrieved. 

The disgraceful scenes, which occurred in the course 
of this controversy, were chiefly due to the part taken in 
it by monks, who now swarmed in all oriental Christen- 
dom in such numbers as seriously to diminish the ranks 
of industry. If merely to be in earnest .were true godli- 
ness, the highest merit could not be denied to most of 
them ; but so to judge would be to transform Christianity 
into fanaticism. Some of their extravagances would be 
incredible, were they not testified to by eye witnesses. 
Such were the stylite saints, one of whom called Simeon 
died in 459, after having lived 37 years on the top of a 
pillar. In the west such wild extremes of asceticism 
never met with much favor. For that, something was 
due to Benedict of [N'ursia, who in the year 529, founded 
a monastery on Mount Casinus in Italy, with a greatly 
improved system of rules. That system distributed the 
time of the monks, in a strict and sensible way, between 
devotion, study and manual labor : and for several gene- 
rations its working was enforced with more than military 
severity. The rule of Benedict was the true foundation 
of western monasticism, as distinguished from the eastern. 

And yet we must not include all the ascetics of the 
east under one indiscriminate censure. Among them 
are to be found cases, like that of Isidore of Pelusium, 
marked by true scriptural faith and warm love to the 
Savior, a real hun^erins: and thirsting after righteous- 
ness. 

In 531 and 535 the arms of Belisarius overthrow the 
Arian Yandals in Africa and Sicily, and gave freedom to 
the Orthodox. A similar service was done for Italy in 
the defeat of the Gothic Kingdom there. 

In 496 Clovis King of the Franks, induced by the 
entreaties of his queen, a Burgundian princess, and cer- 
tain circumstances of his life, assumed the profession of 
Christianity. A great number of his people followed his 



82 

example immediately. His sister and three thousand of 
his army were baptized on the same occasion, and came 
into the church professing the orthodox faith. In 596, 
a mission from Borne, sent out by Gregory 1., to the 
Anglo-Saxons in England, planted itself in Kent, where 
it met with favor from kino; Ethelbert, through the influ- 
ence of his wife, who was a Frank. 

In receiving the title universal, the bishop.of Rome 
enjoyed the imperial gift of the highest honor as a min- 
ister of religion. It was an empty honor. Because the 
Byzantine Patriarch never withdrew his pretension, and 
the eastern church never admitted that of Rome; but it was a 
ground whereon every effort to reach a real ecclesiastical 
monarchy could be justified. To that rank the Roman 
hierarch had risen by several successive steps. First, 
that in which he was pastor of one congregation ; second, 
that in which he was the presiding officer of several con- 
gregations ministered to by presbyters; third, in the 
process of church extension, and annexation of mission 
and other congregations in neighboring towns, whose 
ministers were bishops, he became the chief bishop over 
some other bishops, their Primus; fourth, under the con- 
stitution of Constantine, he received the importance 
assigned to bishops in the chief cities of Prefectures, be- 
coming thereby one of the four great metropolitans; fifth, 
when their rank, with that of the bishop of Jerusalem, 
was recognized under the title of patriarch, as superior 
to that of the exarchs of dioceses, at the Council of Chal- 
cedon, the patriarchs of Rome and of Constantinople 
were assigned a higher honor than the other patriarchs ; 
and sixth, when both these dignitaries aimed at being 
sovereign, the title of that rank first conferred by impe- 
rial favor upon the Byzantine Patriarch, was subsequently 
by the same authority transferred to the Roman. That 
the jurisdiction of the latter subsequently increased, and 
that of the former diminished, was due to other than 
ecclesiastical causes. That growth was a natural devel- 
opment. JS T o stage of it, except the last, was a precon- 
certed imposition upon the church, although unjustifiable 
means were sometimes used to sustain them all when once 
reached. They successively grew naturally out of original 



83 

mistakes, in adopting certain principles from the muni- 
cipal idea in the heart of the civil government ; especially 
the method of church extension, and in admitting of only 
one bishop in one city. 

During the frequent invasions of Italy in the fifth and 
sixth centuries and the separation of Rome from other 
dominions of the empire, the bishop of that city had often 
to take upon himself the execution of civil duties, not 
from ambition, but from the necessities of the case. His 
office thereby became, in course of time, associated with 
civil authority, although only incidentally. The preteu- 
sion that it has always been from the days of the apostles 
what it is now; or rather what it was in the thirteenth 
century, is clearly and positively contradicted by history. 

In the course of the fifth century we enter upon the 
period of time commonly called the middle ages. Its 
true limits are on one side, the extinction of the western 
empire, in 476., and on the other, the taking of Constan- 
tinople by the Turks, in 1453. That is, politically con- 
sidered, the middle ages are those which intervened be- 
tween the termination of the western empire and that of 
the eastern. During all that time there is an emperor in 
the east; but during most of it, none in the west ; and 
only for brief periods, one whose authority extended over 
Rome. The bishops accordingly, who would otherwise 
have been second, became first in goverment from that 
city : while at Constantinople, the bishop continued to be 
a subject of the emperor. Still, the superiority of the 
popes over the civil rulers in the west was never admitted 
by the latter, when strong enough to resist it. 

In taking a general view of the middle as;es, we shall 
find first a process of dissolution, extending to all the 
structure of civilization : secondly, a process of settlement 
of new peoples, and by new methods ; and thirdly, a pro- 
cess of growth, in a new style of culture. 

The middle ages are not all equally dark ages. 
Gloomiest, I think, are the latter years of the fifth century, 
the sixth, the seventh, most of the eighth, the whole of 
the tenth and first half of the eleventh. 

At the beginning of the seventh century, the popu- 
larity of christian profession was at its highest. Heath- 



84 

enism had long ago become utterly unfashionable, within 
the bounds of what had once been the empire ; and was 
fast melting away before the outward progress of at least 
nominal Christianity, in all directions. We may con- 
template the church, at that date, as consisting of three 
grand divisions ; first, the Latin Church, comprehending 
all the southwest of Europe, and north of Africa ; second, 
the Greek church; and third, the oriental churches, con- 
sisting of the two great divisions of Monophysite, and 
Nestorian, extending over all north eastern Africa, and 
western Asia, and as far east as India and China. Never 
perhaps did the pride of power, of pervasive and all- 
absorbing popularity so fill the mind of the church. That 
success had not been attained without earnestness and 
truth of faith, but unhappily also with the introduction 
of many an error through the haste to be great, and to 
have nations born in a day. 

IV. 607—752. 

The period intervening between the death of Boni- 
face III., and the accession of Stephen II., that is, from 607 
until 752, includes another stage in the development of 
Papalism. The former date is that of the death of the 
first bishop of Rome, who enjoyed the title of universal, 
the latter is that of the accession of the first who took 
his place as a temporal prince. Moreover it was a time 
of great adversity to the church. Both of the chief 
patriarchs suffered diminution of jurisdiction, but the eas- 
ern most. 

Khosru king of Persia, who had been restored to his 
throne by the aid of the emperor Mauritius, now prepared 
to take vengeance upon Phocas for the death of his ben- 
efactor. But ere his army could reach Constantinople, 
Heraclius exarch of Africa, in 610, had seized the gov- 
ernment and put Phocas to death. Khosru continued his 
march until he reached the Bosphorus, and retained for 
twelve years his hold upon Asia Minor. Heraclius finally, 
by an invasion of Persia compelled him to return. By 
so long a war both Persia and the empire were weakened. 

Meanwhile, about 611, Mohammed began to teach 
his doctrines in Mecca. His object was to overthrow 



idolatry, and restore the worship of the one unseen God 
of his father Abraham. The different portions of his 
system were announced from time to time, as occasion 
called them forth : and combined in one book after his 
death. 

Mohammed did not receive Christ as the eternal son 
of God ; but as a divine teacher, and the greatest of the 
prophets; and as miraculously born of the Virgin Mary. 
He also believed in Christ's divinely appointed death, 
resurrection and ascension, and taught that all should 
believe in him as the apostle of God; but not to accept 
him as a sufficient Saviour. 

It was the deplorable corruption of the eastern church, 
not so much in doctrine, as in life and worship, and es- 
pecially its practical idolatry, which lent the single, but 
sublime truth of Mohammedanism its early power. 

Little progress, however, was made by Mohammed in 
obtaining converts until he was constrained by persecu- 
tion in Mecca, to flee to Medina. This event, which 
occurred on the 15th of July 622, is the starting point of 
the Mohammedan era. From that date his notoriety 
increased, and converts multiplied, and attached them- 
selves to his cause with great enthusiasm. At first he 
used onl} r persuasion ; latterly he received authority to 
compel assent to his doctrines by force of arms. He died 
in 632, asserting that God had given the world to be 
conquered for Islam. That very year the arms of his 
followers were carried beyond the bounds of Arabia. 

The successors of Mohammed in office were called 
Kalifs. The first was Abubeker. In his reign of two 
years, he reduced all the countries between the Euphrates 
and the Mediterranean sea. In 636, the last of the imperial 
troops were driven out of Syria. Next year Jerusalem 
was taken. Egypt was reduced in 640, and the greater 
part of northern Africa in 647. Persia in 651. By that 
date Mohammedan conquest had extended to the opposite 
extremes of Armenia and Nubia. It took in also Cyprus 
and Rhodes, and advanced against Constantinople, which 
was saved by the use of the Greek fire. From Maurita- 
nia it passed into Spain, overran almost all the Peninsula; 
crossed the Pvrenees into the heart of France ; and met 



86 

its first check in the valley of the Loire in 732, the one 
hundredth year after the death of Mohammed. They 
were defeated by the Franks under command of Charles 
Martel. 

Thus, within a hundred years, the christian church 
was overrun, and trampled down in Arabia, Persia, Syria, 
Egypt, Northern Africa, part of Asia Minor, and the 
greater part of the Spanish peninsula. The Patriarchate 
of Constantinople was shorn of a large part of its juris- 
diction ; that of Rome, if we count in her claims to north 
Africa, was diminished by nearly one half, those of 
Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria, were entirely re- 
duced to dependencies of the Saracen, and theNestorian 
churches of the further east were overwhelmed, and for 
centuries, many of them forever, disappeared from his- 
tory. 

Of what remained under christian dominion, in Italy, 
the Greek exarchate gradually broke down before the 
increasing strength of the Lombards until in 752, it came 
entirely into their possession. During the period of its 
existence the capital had been Ravenna ; Rome was only 
the head of an inferior province of the Greek empire; 
the bishop was the chief authority in it; a serious dimi- 
nution of authority, but combined w T ith circumstances, 
which ultimately went to enlarge it. Christian Spain 
was not crushed; but laid under domination of an auti- 
christian power. In France, the military chiefs had as- 
sumed to a great degree the control of the church. In 
Northern Africa Christianity was not extinguished, but it 
was prostrated under the Saracenic rule, without hope 
of relief. 

The churches of the west in view of such danger and 
loss, turned their eyes with the more interest to their 
religious chief at the old capital. Rome, now feeble, still 
possessed a great inheritance of prestige, the superiority 
of a thousand years, the source of empire in the west, of 
religious observances, many of which had come down to 
christian, from heathen times. The title, and rank of 
sovereign pontiff, which had been worn by the heathen 
emperors as chiefs of the old state religion, and also by 
the first christian emperors, was now assumed by the 



87 

bishop of Rome. Still the churches in Spain, Gaul and 
Britain had little connection with that patriarchal capital, 
being governed by their own episcopal authorities in 
relation to the civil powers under which they lived. 

The pope was still a subject of the eastern emperor, 
and had to be confirmed in office by him, and to pay him 
taxes. And sometimes the imperial hand fell heavily 
upon a refractory pope. Such an act was always treasur- 
ed up in memory and handed down to succeeding Popes 
for payment. And every advantage secured was thence 
forward claimed as a right. Thus, Pope Sergius rejected 
the canons of the second council in Trullo 692. The 
emperor, Justinian II, sent an officer to arrest him ; but 
the pope escaped through an insurrection in Ravenna. 
The emperor was deposed in 695, for reasons unconnect- 
ed with the church, but the victory remained with the 
Papacy. Justinian II., after his restoration in 705, re- 
ceived Pope Constantine in his capital, overloaded him 
with extravagant honors, and set the example, of kissing 
his foot. 

As the weight of the empire continued to diminish in 
Italy, the popes began to turn their eyes towards an alli- 
ance with the Frank leaders. Gregoiw III. applied to 
Charles Martel, the hero of Poitiers, for that protection 
against the Lombards, which his own monarch was una- 
ble to furnish. Gregory III. was followed by Zacharias 
in 741, in whose pontificate the policy of Gregory became 
a necessity. From the utter failure of the secular arm 
to defend Rome, the Pope was constrained to take upon 
himself entirely that state business, which his predeces- 
sors had long been more or less sustaining. Pepin, the 
son of Charles Martel in 751 usurped the throne of 
France, and applied to the Pope for his sanction. It was 
given. Pepin was anointed King, and the last Merovin- 
gian went into a cloister. Zacharias died early next year. 
His successor was Stephen II. The Lombards were 
making war upon the exarchate of Ravenna. Before the 
end of the year they had reduced it. They next turned 
their arms against Rome. Stepheu applied to the new 
King of France for aid. In the name of the empire, and 
as defender of its territory, Pepin led his forces into Italy, 



defeated the Lombards and saved Rome, Taking from 
the Lombards what they had recently conquered from 
the emperor, he gave it to the pope. The districts con- 
tained in that gift constituted the skeleton of what was 
afterwards embraced under the name of the States of the 
church. Thus the Pope took his place as a secular prince. 
He had also allied himself with a new and powerful 
dynasty in the w T est, whose influence was exerted to bring 
the Gallican church into closer relations to Rome. A 
point of authority was also established in that the first 
king of the new dynasty had solicited papal sanction, 
and accepted anointment at the hands of the Pope. 
The Papacy was put into possession of great wealth. 
Allegiance to the emperor was still recognized, but it 
had ceased to be more than nominal. 

During this period the principal theological question 
was that concerning the singleness or duality of will in 
Christ. 

When the emperor Heraclius w r as in Syria, from 622, 
he became acquainted more intimately with the condi- 
tion of the Monophysites, and was persuaded that the 
principal obstacle to their returning into the Catholic- 
church might be removed, by a statement of doctrine 
representing the nature of Christ as two fold, but the will 
as one. Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople was con- 
sulted on the subject, and expressed his opinion that such 
a view was not inconsistent with the creed of the church. 
Several theologians of the east coincided with him. 
Cyrus patriarch of Alexandria accepted the doctrine, and 
made some progress in reconciling the two parties with- 
in his diocese. Action to that effect was taken b} r a 
council in Alexandria, in 633. But Sophronius, a clearer 
thinking Palestinian monk, happened to be there at the 
time, and declared his opposition. He became patriarch 
of Jerusalem next year, and used his increased influence 
to promote the rising excitement of controversy. Sergius 
of Constantinople succeeded in enlisting Honorius, bishop 
of Rome, on his side. Thus the Patriarchs of Constan- 
tinople, of Rome and of Alexandria were arrayed on the 
Monothelite side, against the Patriarch of Jerusalem. 
Sophronius however had the advantage of his opponents 



89 

in point of logic, and his reasoning goon convinced the 
greater number of theologians. But he was silenced by 
the Mohammedans, into whose hands he and his patri- 
archate fell in 637. He died soon after. Next year, the 
emperor, finding that instead of harmony, only greater 
division of opinion was produced by his doctrine, issued 
what he called the Ecthesis, prepared by Sergius, with 
the hope of allaying the excitement. In that proclama- 
tion he stated the doctrine of one Christ in two natures, 
and that the one Christ works both what is divine and 
what is human ; but urged that the phrases expressive of 
one energy or of two energies, which had been used in 
controversy, should be avoided. Both parties were dis- 
satisfied. Succeeding bishops of Rome rejected the 
Ecthesis, and in the east orthodoxy was ably defended by 
the monk Maximus ; while Theodore bishop of Pharan 
in Arabia upheld the cause of the Monothelites. In 648 
the emperor Constans II. issued an edict called the 
Typus {tuttoz) by which the Ecthesis was revoked, and 
without taking the part of either side, an attempt was 
made to restrain violent disputes, and effect peace in the 
church. Of course it did not succeed. Pope Martin I. 
called a council in Rome, the first Lateran, the next year, 
at which twenty canons were drawn up condemning 
Monotheletism, thereby putting himself in opposition to 
the imperial policy. For that he was in 653, arrested, 
deposed, and taken to Constantinople, on charge of high 
treason. He was banished, 655, to Chersonepus in the 
Crimea, where he soon afterwards died. 

Maximus met with a similar, but severer fate. His 
trial effecting no disposition in him to comply with the 
imperial edict, he was imprisoned several years, then 
publicly scourged, his tongue cut out. and his right hand 
cut off; after which he was banished to the country of 
Lazians, where he died, in 662. 

As another means of reconciling the long standing 
dispute, the emperor Constantine IV. called a general 
council to meet at Constantinople, in 680. It assembled 
in a hall of the palace called Triillus. The emperor pre- 
sided. The doctrine of two wills was accepted as scrip- 
tural ; that is, that in Christ there are two natures in one 



90 

person ; each nature possessing a will of its own ; and 
the Monothelite doctrine of two natures in one person, 
with only one will, was condemned. 

Under the emperor Philippians Bardanes, 711 — 713, 
the controversy was revived, in the east, but for only a 
short time. Monothelites diminished in number, and 
ultimately became limited to a small dissenting parly 
who residing chiefly in the region of Lebanon, chose a 
patriarch of Antioch for themselves. Their remnant 
still survives under the name of Maronites. 

It was probably during the seventh century that the 
Symbol um Quicumque, erroneously called the Athana- 
sian Creed was framed, taking its origin in Spain. It is 
the third of the old Catholic Symbols, the Apostles' 
Creed and the Niceno-Constautinopolitan being the 
first and second. 

In outward progress of the church the most import- 
ant steps were those of mission work in the British isles. 

Augustine with Laurentius and other Benedictine 
monks, sent by Gregory I. to the Anglo-Saxons, landed 
on the coast of Kent in 597. Their success proved to be 
great beyond expectation. The king of Kent soon pro- 
fessed himself a christian, and was followed by his peo- 
ple, ten thousand of whom were baptized in one day. 
Canterbury was constituted an archbishopric, and Augus- 
tine its first incumbent, in 604. At the end of five years, 
he was succeeded by his companion Laurentius ; and the 
work went on prosperously. 

The latter years of the sixth century and the seventh 
were marked by great missionary zeal on the part of 
British christians of the older connection. The church 
in the south of Scotland was early cut off from Rome, 
by the withdrawal of Roman troops further south, long 
before they were entirely removed from the island, sub- 
sequent interposition of heathen Saxons increased that 
isolation. About the year 430, the gospel was carried 
from the South of Scotland into the north of Ireland by 
Patricius. Others had preceded him yet so far superior w T as 
the success which attended the preaching of Patricius, 
that Ireland refers the planting of her church entirely to 
him. It was the counties Down and Armagh that he 
commenced his labors, which soon extended to all the 



01 

north, and thence, by the hands of others the gospel was 
carried to the rest of the island. Armagh was subse- 
quently constituted the seat of primacy for Ireland. 

From about the middle of the sixth century, the Irish 
clergy were distinguished for learning superior tothe age 
in other quarters, and for missionary zeal. Their princi- 
pal school and centre of operations was Bangor, in the 
county Down. About 563, Columba left Ireland to carry 
the gospel into the northwest of Scotland, where it had 
not then been preached. He with his companions was 
favorably received by a chief of the Hebrides, who gave 
him the island of Iona. There lie erected a church, and 
a house for himself and his missionaries, who from that 
centre extended their excursions to various parts of the 
mainland and neighboring islands. In 635, Oswald king 
of Northumbria obtained a missionary from Iona to 
preach within his dominions, and gave him for residence 
the island of Lindisfarne. The success of that mission 
was rapid, and churches were soon planted as far south 
as Yorkshire and even in the centre of England. At 
the same time the Romish missions from the south were 
rapidly advancing northward. In the conflict of authori- 
ties which ensued, the power of Iona could not withstand 
that from Rome. The churches of the northern mission 
were, before the end of the seventh century compre- 
hended within the jurisdiction of the southern. Lindis- 
farne became a Romish monastery, and its episcopal 
authority was transferred to Durham. York was the 
seat of an archbishopric; but Canterbury was honored 
with the primacy of all England. Articles enforcing 
obedience of the churches in the north of England tothe 
Romish practices were proposed by Theodore of Canter- 
bury in a provincial council for the north in 674. 

It was also in the early part of the seventh century 
that Columbanus and Callus left Ireland at the head of 
another little group of missionaries to preach in Bur- 
gundy, France and Switzerland. Columbanus died in 
615 and Gallus in 627. 

Y. 752—880. 

Leagued with the great Carolingian kings of France' 
the Papacy now entered upon the first period of its real 



92 

supremacy in the west. That period extends from the 
pontificate of Stephen II., until 880, the date of the dif- 
ference, which was never reconciled, between the Pope 
and the Patriarch, and the beginning of the medieval de- 
cline of the Papacy. Another feature of the time 
was the settlement of the new nations, the chief work of 
Charlemagne, who also forced upon his heathen subjects 
the profession of Christianity, by having them baptized. 

It was within the same period that the Iconoclast con- 
troversy ran the most exciting part of its course. By 
the beginning of the seventh century the worship of im- 
ages had become common throughout the church both 
east and west. Opposition to it was the strong point of 
Mohammedanism. A few intelligent christians also per- 
ceived its unchristian character; but the greater num- 
ber were devotedly attached to their images. In 726, 
the emperor, Leo Isanricus issued an edict forbidding the 
practice; and in 730 he ordered the images or pictures 
to be destroyed. The opposition of Germanus, patriarch 
of Constantinople, was overcome by deposing him, and 
setting up Anastasius. Rome defended the worship of 
images. And Catholic christians under Mahammedan rule 
adhered to the practice as a distinctive badge of their 
religion. 

The course of the Emperor Leo was also pursued by 
his successor Constantine, in whose reign the council 
of 754, at Constatinople, condemned the worship of im- 
ages ; but not to the satisfaction of the Catholic public 
nor of the bishop of Rome, who did not recognize the 
council. A new stage of the controversy opened, the 
imperial authority being generally arranged against im- 
ages, and the popes in favor of them, until in the minor- 
ity of the Emperor Constantine VI., his mother Irene 
became, in 780, empress regent, and sustained the cause 
of the image-worshippers. Irene called a general coun- 
cil to meet at Nice, in 787, which, with her support, de- 
clared image-worship to be orthodox, and defined and 
prescribed the practice. That council is accepted by 
both east and west Catholic churches, and remains their 
authority on the subject. 

The controversy was opened a third time by the Em- 



93 

peror Leo V, who, in 813, called a council at Constan- 
tinople, in which image-worship was condemned. But 
finally, when another empress came into power, namely 
Theodora, a fourth council, convoked at Constantinople, 
in 842, sustained the image-worshippers, confirming the 
second council of Nice. And the controversy closed 
with a grand festival in honor of that decision, which 
was called the festival of orthodoxy. 

In the west, during part of the eighth century, some 
controversy was created by the opinions of two Spanish 
bishops, Elipand of Toledo, and Felix of Urgel, that 
Christ in his divine nature was the true Son of God, but 
as a man, only the adopted son. The opinion was rejected 
as heretical by the council at Frankfort in 794. 

Transubstantiation of the elements in the Eucharist 
was first formally taught and defended by Paschasius 
Eadbert, abbot of Corbey from 844 to 851. Though 
practically held by very many in the church, from earlier 
time, it encountered strong opposition, when first pro- 
posed as a dogma, and was not accepted authoritatively, 
nor was the term transubstantiation introduced, until 
long afterwards. Rabanus Maurus, John Scot Erigena 
and Ratramnus, the ablest theologians of the ninth cen- 
tury, all wrote against it. 

Controversy was revived on the subject of predestina- 
tion by the writings of Gottschalk, a monk of Fulda, 
who from about 840 taught that there is a two-fold pre- 
destination of the elect to blessedness, and of the rest of 
mankind to punishment. He was opposed by Rabanus 
Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, and Hincmar, Archbishop 
of Rheims. After years of controversy, Gottschalk was 
condemned to imprisonment, in which he died, in 868. 

A controversy concerning the procession of the Holy 
Spirit had more inmediate effect upon the history of the 
church. The creed of the general councils states that the 
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. A conviction which 
appeared first in Spain, in the acts of a council at Toledo, 
in 589, and again in other Spanish councils of the seventh 
century, that He proceeds from both the Father and the 
Son, w T as, sometime in the early part of the ninth cen- 
tury, introduced into the Latin version of the Creed. 



94 

Ther proposal to insert it in the original Greek 
was rejected by the council of Constantinople in 879. 
On the subject oifilioque, the eastern and western Catholic 
church established a permanent difference of opinion. 

In Armenia, Parsism became blendid with Christian- 
ity giving rise to that sect called by other Christians 
" The children of the sun." '• On the other hand a class 
of reformers arose in the east, about the middle of the 
seventh century, who sought to conform closely to the 
teaching of the apostles, "especially of John and Paul. 
From the frequent use among them of the name and 
writings of the last mentioned, it is thought, they received 
the name Paulicians, by which they are known. Their lead- 
ers, in many cases, assumed the names of persons con- 
nected with Paul in his labors. They suffered much per- 
secution. Constantine, who took the name Silvan us, an 
eminent teacher among them, in neighborhood of Samo- 
sata, between 657 and 684 was stoned to death by order 
of the emperor Constantine IV. But the officer who 
executed the order becama a convert to the cause, and a 
preacher of it under the name of Titus, and died at the 
stake under Justinian II. The Paulicians were opposed 
to image-worship, and for that reason were protected by 
the emperor Leo I'sauricus. Through the latter part of 
the eighth century and until 811, they increased in num- 
ber and spread their churches over Asia Minor. From 
811, persecution was revived and continued many years, 
especially under the rule of the zealous image-worship- 
per Theodora, from 841 to 855, who with a fanatical fury 
resolved to extirpate them. Not less than a hundred 
thousand of them are said to have been slain in Armenia 
by her officers. Many of them fled for refuge to the 
Saracens, and finding protection added their force to the 
enemies of the empire. But notwithstanding persecution, 
their converts also increased to the westward, and Pauli- 
cian churches were founded in Thrace and Bulgaria, and 
thence, at a later date, their doctrines spread under 
various names, into the west of Europe. 

The last years of the eighth century, and earlier part 
of the ninth were marked by a highly laudable effort at 
reform and restoration of learning, made by both Christ- 



95 

ian and Mohammedan princes. 

Among the Saracens, it was the time of the great 
Abbasside Kalifs of Bagdad : a dynasty eleveted in 750, 
at Damascus, by the cruel success of Abul Abbas, call 
Al Saffah. Their seat of government was subsequently 
removed to Ilasheiniab, and in 762 to Bagdad. Al Man- 
sur and Al Mahadi successively reigned after Abul Abbas 
until 785, when it reached its highest excellence under 
Harun Al Raschid. Upon his death in 808, his sons Al 
Almin and Al Mamun reigned successively until 833. 
From that date Bagdad began to decline, and succeeding 
barbaric invasions rendered decline irretrievable. 

In Spain the Moors within this period began their 
career of civilization, which they continued until the 
rise of modern learning. 

In the Greek empire, the state of culture was little 
improved; but one or two authors flourished there greatly 
superior to any of the foregoing period. 

In the west of Christian Europe, the effort towards 
restoration of learning and of ecclesiastical order was 
earnestly made, by those at the head of the civil govern- 
ment, Pepin. Charlemagne, and Louis, from 751 to 840. 
For the time then being, their success was not equal to 
that of the Mohammedan princes; but the seeds they 
planted bore more abundant fruit, in a far distant future. 
The sons of Louis divided their father's dominion, and 
enfeebled their resources; but they also patronized let- 
letters in some degree. With the death of Charles the 
bald in 877, such patronage ceased in that quarter. But 
almost at the same time commenced the reign of Alfred 
the Great in England, extending from 871 until 900. 

With all the encouragement of Charlemagne, the 
improvement in learning was very slender. Few cared 
to study, and the course of instruction even in the 
improved schools was scanty The topics of the Trivium 
and Quadrivium were briefly and superficially treated. 
The Scholars who illustrate the time were Alcuinus, 
Eginhard, Rabanus Maurus, Hincmar, Ratramnus, John 
Scot Erigena, and Claudius of Turin. Among the 
Greeks the principal name is that of Photius. 

For thirty years Charlemage made war on various 



96 

nations of Saxons, the Bohemians and Hans, whom he 
subdued, and constrained to profess Christianity. He 
also invaded the Mohammedans of Spain, and drove them 
from that part of the peninsula north of the Ebro. In 
772 he went into Italy to protect the Pope from the Lom- 
bards, and before the end of two years, put an end to the 
Lombard kingdom. And in 786, the duke of Benevento 
submitted to hold his dutchy as a tief of Charlemagne. 
The kingdom thus built up, before the end of the eighth 
century, extended from the Ebro and south of Italy to 
the Elbe and Eider in the north, and from the Atlantic 
to Panonia, a great part of which it included, and the 
valley of the Theis in Hungary. 

Pope Leo III. seeing all this, determined to 
break off the last show of allegiance to Constantinople, 
and connect his office, on different terms, with the new 
monarchy of the west, by reviving the western empire. 
On the 25th of December, 800, Charlemagne was at 
Rome in the church of St. Peter. When keeling at the 
altar, he was approached solemnly by the Pope, who 
placed on his head a golden crown, and pronounced him 
emperor of Rome : and from the vast congregation burst 
forth the exclamation, "Life and victory to Charles, 
crowned by God emperor of Rome." 

There was now again an emperor of the west, and 
Rome and the Papacy were finally separated from the 
emperors of the east, and from the Byzantine system. 
This is the point at which the popes became legally inde- 
pendent. For ecclesiastical supremacy was never recog- 
nized as belonging to the new imperial line of the west. 
The idea of being free from civil allegiance, however, 
did not at first occur to the successors of Leo III. But 
not quite half a century had elapsed ere that also was 
claimed. Eugenius II, in 824 took an oath of allegiance; 
but Sergius II., in 844 ventured to neglect it, advantage 
being taken of the divided state of the secular power. 
And in 847 Leo IV. was not only ordained without im- 
perial sanction, but also assumed precedence of princes 
in putting his name to documents. An attempt was 
made by Nicholas I. in 858 to impose papal superiority 
upon Constantinople. The emperor Michael III. having 



97 

removed the patriarch Ignatius, and appointed Photius 
in his stead, Ignatius applied to the pope, who having 
first in vain demanded the restoration of the ecclesiasti- 
cal jurisdiction of Illyricam, Macedonia, Epirus, Thessaly. 
Acliaia, and Sicily, with the addition of Bulgaria, took 
revenge by excommunicatingPhotius. Photius retaliated 
by excommunicating Nicholas. Ignatius was restored 
by the succeeding emperor Basilius, 867, but neither of 
them complied with the pope's demand. A general 
council at Constantinople in 869 condemned Photius. 
After the death of Ignatius in 878, Photius was restored. 
And another council at Constantinople in 879, labored 
to reconcile the two hierarchs, but without effect. 
Because among other things it could not recognize Pome 
as the last, court of appeal, nor assent to the western doc- 
trine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, nor to the 
claim of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Bulgaria and other 
provinces above named. Consequently the council of 
879 was anathematized by pope John VIII. in 880. The 
bishops of the east and west never again met in a general 
council of both churches. For the eastern Catholic 
church recognizes no council as general since that of 879. 

With the reign of Charlemagne begins the true set- 
tlement of the nations of western Europe, and the period 
of dissolution comes to an end. 

In the constitution of his empire, Charlemagne had 
special regard to the interests of the church. And that 
of Pome was the model which he endeavored to follow : 
but without reeognizing its supremacy. The highest 
authority in affairs of government was retained for the 
monarch, who summoned ecclesiastical as well as civil 
assemblies, and whose sanction was needed to confirm 
their decrees. And in the administration of law, bishops 
and counts were associated, and instructed to support 
each other. Neither Pepin nor Charlemagne, though 
paying great honor to popes, ever allowed them any other 
influence in affairs of state than that of advice or remon- 
strance. Thus, the Galliean church obtained, in its recon- 
struction under those great princes, a degree of freedom 
from papal domination, which no other western church 
could claim. 



98 

In the reign of Louis, papal influence was suffered to 
increase, and every advantage was taken, by the popes, 
of the division and enfeebling of the empire by his sons. 

The Anglo-Saxon church of Britain was most faith- 
fully attached to Rome. It had no antiquity of greater 
purity to regret. In Spain, christians living under Moor- 
ish rule were allowed the privileges of worship, and of 
internal church government and discipline, but suffered 
in many ways from the Mohammedan populace. Gothic 
Spaniards were independent, and almost continually at 
war with the Moors. 

Mission work was confined chiefly to the north of 
Europe. That of Ansehar, commenced in 826, carried 
Christianity into Denmark and Sweden, and laid the 
foundation for the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, 
which was constituted in 881. And what Ansehar and 
his companions were to the northwest of Europe, Cyril 
and Methodius were to the northeast. Through their 
efforts, the Moravians were added to the eastern church, 
about the year 862, the Bulgarians about 864; and in 
subsequent years the same labors were extended to the 
Chazars, a people living to the north of the Black sea. 
From Moravia the cause was carried, in 871, into Bohe- 
mia. 

The discipline of the church had undergone a change. 
Private confession was now completely established ; and 
the priest was empowered to grant absolution under con- 
dition of a penance to be perfoimed. Excommunication 
was not often inflicted, but from the civil forfeitures, and 
the social exclusion connected vvith.it, had become greatly 
intensified in its terrors. 

Superstitious rites and observances were greatly mul- 
tiplied. Saints and their relics increased on all hands, 
and legends of their virtues and miracles, manufactured 
chiefly in the east and at Rome, were greedily accepted 
by an ignorant public everywhere. The festival of All 
Saints gradually grew into use in the seventh and eighth 
centuries, and in the ninth, was regularly appointed by 
Gregory IV., for the first of November. A festival was 
introduced in honor of the birth of the Virgin Mary on 
the 8th of September, and for her ascension, on the 15th 






99 

of August. For it had now been decided that Mary was 
taken up bodily to heaven. Certain writings were pre- 
sented by the eastern emperor Michael II. to the western 
emperor Louis the pious, as the works of Dionysius the 
Areopagite. The French scholars and people, taking the 
pretended author to be the founder of their church, 
accepted Dionysius as "their patron saint, Within the 
same period the christian Spaniards discovered among 
them the wonderfully preserved body of the apostle 
James the brother of our Lord, which forthwith became 
their Palladium in war with the Moors. But every 
country, almost every family, had its patron saint, embel- 
lished with his, or her, miracles. 

In the growth of the papacy in the ninth century 
above all that it had previously been, attempts were made 
to fortify the ground taken, and construct the weapons 
for conquering more by the fabrication of certain authori- 
ties. Certain canons of councils unheard of before, and 
forged epistles of early popes were inserted into the col- 
lection of ecclesiastical laws, which went under the name 
of Isidore of Seville. They were of a nature, if enforced, 
to make the clergy independent of the state, with the 
Roman see the centre of their system. They were used 
as law from the time of Pope Nicholas I. or about 860, 
until their exposure in the eighteenth century. Another 
similar forgery, which came into operation within the 
same period, was the pretended donation of Constantine, 
whereby the Papacy endeavored to sustain its assumption 
of a rank above all civil potentates and powers. This 
This also continued to be adduced as legal authority until 
exposed by modern criticism. 

Amidst accumulating errors and corruptions there 
were still numerous examples of pastoral fidelity and 
of true christian life among both clergy and laity. Ago- 
bard. bishop of Lyons, in the reign of Louis the pious, 
finding the worship of his church debased by the super- 
stition and ignorance of his predecessors, upon his own 
judgment, removed from it everything inconsistent with 
scriptural doctrine, and confined himself as much as por- 
sible to scriptural forms of expression. A still bolder 
reformer, in the spirit of Christ, was Claudius bishop 



100 

of Tuvin, who contended earnestly for the simplicity of 
Christian faith, in opposition to the sensuous and idola- 
trous practices of the age. He exerted an influence upon 
the church of Turin which honorably distinguished it 
long afterwards. 

VI. 880—1054. 

In the pontificate of John VIII. the Papacy had 
reached the prime of its early success, having succeeded 
in gathering together in itself all the elements of Roman- 
ism. By the same time a long successson of emperors 
and patriarchs in Constantinople had matured the system 
of Byzantinism. It was impossible that they could live 
together in harmony, diametrically opposite as they were 
to each other. Some of the points on which the Pope 
and Patriarch differed in 879 and 880, were such as could 
not be compromised. Still, they continued, for one 
hundred and seventy-four years, to hold relations to each 
other as ministers in the same Catholic church, although 
in a state of bitter rivalry, until in the year 1054, they sepa- 
rated entirely, rending the Catholic church in two. The 
intervening period is the lowest in the history of civilized 
Europe. It is marked by papal degeneracy ; by the 
decline of the western empire, and its revival as German, 
and by the darkest shades of popular ignorance. 

1. Louis the pious having divided the empire among 
his three sons, died in 840. His sons immediately rush- 
ed into war with each other, and made a new division, 
by the treaty of Verdun in 843, whereby the general out- 
lines of France and Germany were assigned. But be- 
tween these two countries there Was left a belt of terri- 
tory, which united to the Netherlands on the north, and 
Ital} 7 on the south was given to Lothaire with the title of 
emperor. Germany was assigned to Louis the German, 
and France, to Charles the bald. In 875, the whole, with 
the imperial title came inlo the hands of Charles the 
bald. From his death in 877, the Carolingian dynasty 
broke down. The German branch of it became extinct 
in 912. Conrad of Franconia was elected emperot, but 
died in 918. The next was Henry the Fowler of Saxony. 
From his accession in 919, the western empire, as a 



101 

German power, entered a new career of prosperity, in 
which it was carried forward chiefly by Otho L, the suc- 
cessor of Henry, from 936 to 973. "in 1024, it pa sed 
again into the house of Franconia, beginning with Con- 
rad II., followed successively by Henry III., and Henry 
IY. The last commenced his eventful reign, as a child 
of six vears old under the guardianship of his mother, 
in 1056. 

The Saracens from Africa, after having conquered 
Sicily, and Naples, were, in 877, threatening Rome, 
when the death of Charles the Bald deprived the Pope 
of his strongest protector. None of the other princes 
were in condition to help him. He bought the safety of 
his capital by promise of tribute: and then found him- 
self in the hands of refractory Italian princes. He took 
refuge in France in 878. John VIII— died in 882, and 
was followed, for nearly a hundred and seventy years, by 
a series of popes, of whom, with only one or two excep- 
tions: it is fair to say that whatever their abilities might 
be, they were less conspicuous than their vices. The 
papal office became an object of political ambition, to 
which the elections were managed by parties among the 
Italian nobles. From about 898, if not earlier, the prin- 
cipal power was wielded by certain infamous women of 
high rank, and by thie descendants and kindred for a 
hundred years. A brief interval occurred in the ponti- 
ficate of Gerbert (Silvester II.), a good man, and the only 
good scholar the age could boast, and whom it could not 
understand. But his term of office, from 999 to 1003, 
was too brief to apply any important check to the down- 
ward career of papal history. In the early part of the 
eleventh century Rome both ecclesiastical and civil was 
under the domination of the noble house of Tusculum, 
a branch of the flagitious stock to whom it had been 
subject in the tenth century. So low had the papacy 
descended that men were put into it without the pretence 
of being clergymen. John XIX who was a layman and 
a brother of the count of Tusculum, was carried to the 
Papal chair, in 1024, if not by purchase, at least by the 
political management of his family. He was succeeded 
in 1033, by his nephew, Benedict IX., also a layman, 



102 

for whom the papal office had been purchased when he 
was but a boy of ten years. The dissolute life of Bene- 
dict matched the scandalous manner of his election. 
Rome endured him ten years, and then in 1044, drove 
him from the city, and set up Sylvester III. In the 
course of the strife which ensued, Tusculum prevailed- 
and restored Benedict. Sylvester under excommunica- 
tion betook himself to flight. But the violence of par- 
ties did not cease. Benedict concluded to sell his office. 
It was purchased in 1046 by John Gratian, a priest, who 
took the papal name of Gregory VI. Subsequently 
Benedict changed his mind, his party again-rallied round 
him, and enthroned him once more in theLateran palace. 
One of his rivals, Gregory, held his place in the Cathe- 
dra of St. Maria Maggiore, while the other, Sylvester, 
retained St. Peter's and the Vatican. The streets of 
Rome were harassed by the deadly strife of their parti- 
sans. 

News moved slowly in those days, and the stolidity 
of ignorant superstition took long time to accept the 
conviction of anything wrong in the papal court. But 
it was now impossible that the christian public could be 
ignorant of such a scandalous schism. It would not have 
been well for the church, or the world to have see 
the papacy submerged in such a way and at such a 
juncture. The emperor Henry III., came from Germany 
to restore order, and advanced to Sutri, where he called 
a council. All three popes were cited to appear. Bene- 
dict abdicated, the other two were deposed ; and a new 
pope was elected from the German clergy, who took the 
name of Clement II. Henry then marched to Rome and 
inducted his pope into the papal throne, with the appar- 
ent consent of the Roman clergy, and received, for him- 
self and his queen, imperial coronation at his hands. 

But it was not the emperor who was to be the reformer 
of the papacy. Clement's attempt to reduce the irregu- 
larities of bishops and other clergy utterly failed ; his 
council called at Rome could accomplish nothing, from 
the gigantic extent of the evils. His pontificate was 
brief. He died within a year. Benedict IX took occa- 
sion of the absence of any higher authority to renew his 



103 

usurpation once more, and maintained it nine mouths. 
A new party in favor of imperial interference, united in 
an application to the emperor to nominate a pope accord- 
ing to his own judgment, lie sent them Poppo, bishop 
of Brescia, who reigned as Damasus II, only twenty-three 
days. Again the vacant chair awaited the emperor's 
nomination. He appointed his kinsman Bruno, bishop 
of Toul, a man of learning and humble piety. At a great 
assembly at Worms, in presence of the delegates from 
Rome, the emperor had him invested with the badges of 
Pontifical office. Thus the Papacy, through necessities 
imposed by its own corruptions, was coming distinctly 
under control of the secular power; and so loosely had 
the elections been latterly conducted that the secular 
power was needed to give them some regularity. 

It was at that juncture that one of the most extraor- 
dinary characters of the middle ages appeared. The 
newly elected Pope was encountered at Besancon, on his 
way to Italy, by a young monk from Cluny, who was 
destined to wield a more than imperial influence over 
him. Hildebrand was a native of Tuscany, born about 
1020, educated in Rome, and afterwards in Cluny, where 
the monks regarded him as a prodigy of gifts, application 
and sanctity. His education was entirelj- monastic, and 
his ideas of papal reform were drawn from the monastery. 
About the age of twenty-four he returned to Rome, at 
the juucture when the strife between rival popes was the 
fiercest, and attached himself to Gregory VI. When all 
three popes were deposed, Hildebrand followed Gregory 
into retirement, and after his death, returned for a short 
time to Cluny. He had kept himself well informed of 
the course of events in Rome; and now greatly dissatis- 
fied with the act of investiture at Worms, he presented 
himself, in company with Hugh Abbot of Cluny, to the 
Pope elect at Besancon, and persuaded him to consider 
his investiture by imperial authority null. Bruno 
dismissed his papal equipage, and in company with Hil- 
debrand, pursued the rest of his journey in the manner 
of a pilgrim. At Rome he submitted to election by the 
clergy, and assumed the papal office, as Leo IX., upon 
purely ecclesiastical investiture. 



104 

2. Bishops very generally disapproved of papal inter- 
meddling with the domestic affairs of their dioceses. 
From the latter part of the ninth century, the False 
Decretals operated to bring them under that control. 
Another means was perhaps not less effective. The 
Popes had long been in the habit of conferring archiepis- 
copal office by giving the Pallium, or official robe: and 
from the time of Nicholas I., (858 — 867) that had been 
given only on condition of the receiver taking an oath of 
obedience to the Romish see. According to the False 
Decretals, the Pope was universal bishop. It was by the 
common people that, in those days, papal claims were 
supported. The} 7 , with a superstitious reverence, con- 
ceived that the Pope exercised the powers of divine law, 
and were ready to submit to him, rather than to any au- 
thority, which they deemed merely human. 

The metropolitans, or archbishops of the west, grad- 
ually brought under papal dominion, were also connected 
in other relations with the civil government. In the 
temporalities of their sees, they were involved in the 
generally prevailing feudal system, their tenants being 
feudally dependent on them, and they feudally related to 
the monarch. They had to take the oath of allegiance 
to him, and to receive from him investiture in their 
estates and civil honors. Thus were planted the seeds 
of quarrel between the royal and papal authorities. 

It inevitably followed that numbers of ambitions per- 
sons obtained high places in the church through royal 
favor or political manoeuvring or by money. Inferior 
places of course went the same way ; and simony became 
a prevailing vice of the clergy. 

3. The ministrations of the church conducted by such 
men had ceased to contain instruction. Preaching in 
most places was obsolete. The service was in latin ; and 
that was no longer spoken or understood by the people. 
Religion itself became a dead language to the greater 
number,— a mere system of observances and repetition 
of chanted or numbled sounds. 

4. The monasteries, in which piety and intelligence 
did find some refuge, were always difficult to regulate. 
Houses on the system of P>enedict, after many fluctua- 






105 

tions, before the beginning of the tenth century, had all 
degenerated. Monks had become irregular, idle and 
dissolute. As a measure of reform — the only reform be- 
longing to the tenth century, — the convent of Cluny was 
founded in 910 by William of Aquitaine. The rules of 
Benedict were there revived and some were added, espe- 
cially by the second abbot Odo, who by the strictness of 
his discipline secured for his convent, a reputation for 
eminent sanctity. After its example, other monasteries 
were founded or reformed, and its abbots were sometimes 
invited elsewhere for that purpose. The association of 
monasteries, looking to Cluny as their exemplar, was 
spoken of as the Oongregatio Cluniacensis, and its abbots 
somtimes, as archabbots. Many persons who were not 
monks so connected themselves with them as to be allow- 
ed, according to the then prevailing ideas, a " share in 
the spiritual blessing of the brotherhood,*' and were called 
Fr itres Conscripti, or Cowfratr.es. Cluny was assigned to 
the immediate care of the pope. In that respect also 
many other monasteries followed its example. 

5. The reign of ignorance and superstition continued. 
God was concealed from the view of worshippers by a 
multitude of saints held up for adoration in his stead. 
Every place of worship was supplied with their relics, 
which were bought and sold for their miraculous virtues. 
And popular instruction, consisted almost solely of 
legends designed to set off such wares. The Virgin Mary 
was honored most of all. Saturday was set apart to her, 
and a daily office introduced in her worship. 

The Lord Jesus Christ was not entirely left out of 
view, but together with other persons of the Godhead 
was put at a great distance off, when he was not repre- 
sented as a child or a corpse. Access to him as God was 
held to be through his mother. 

In doctrine, the church still professed the creed of 
the general councils ; practically, reliance for salvation 
rested upon good works, penance and the intercession of 
the Virgin Mary and the saints. By good works were 
understood works of mercy, but also, to a great extent, 
acts of asceticism, or of attendance on formal observ- 
ances, or donatious to the church. Penances were now re- 



106 

duced to a system, regulated by written rules. It was 
an act of great merit to exceed those rules, by voluntary 
infliction. It was now practically admitted that pardon 
of sin could be granted by the priest, upon confession to 
him, and compliance with the penance by him imposed. 
Excommunication, as a means of coercion, now reached 
its extremest severity ; and was carried to its widest ap- 
plication, in the form of the interdict. 

A signal confession of judicial incapacity was implied 
in trial by ordeal, a heathen custom introduced from 
Germany, and now superintended by i he clergy : of similar 
nature was that of trial by battle, the most degenerate 
effects of which have lasted longest. 

One institution of the time for which the clergy 
deserve credit was the Truce of God, an attempt to put 
some check, though only partial and brief, upon the pre- 
valence of private wars. 

Popularly it was believed that all tilings were sink- 
ing towards dissolution, and that the world would come 
to an end in the year 1000 after Christ. 

The very missionary enterprises of the time partook 
of its wild half heathenish character. In Norway 
Christianity was established by force of arms. By the 
same means it obtained the mastery in Bohemia and was 
forced upon the Wends by the German Empire, upon 
the Hungarians by their Kings, and upon the Russians 
by their Grand Duke. That the gospel of Christ sur- 
vived such extravagant misrepresentation is almost 
miraculous, and due chiefly to the preservation of the 
written Word, and the fact that there was always some- 
where a remnant true to the spirit of its instructions. 

6. In order to a just apprehension of the church in 
the Middle Ages, it is important to distinguish between 
the church ; and inthe hierarchy itself, between the 
episcopal authorities and the papal. 

The church of God was oppressed, crushed beneath 
the weight of powers which had assumed to govern it, 
and were making their gain thereby; but it was never 
extinguished. Prevented from demonstrating itself out- 
wardly in any proper organic form, it existed in the 
hearts of individuals and in their spiritual sympathy and 



107 

understanding* with one another, in as far as they had 
any knowledge of each other's faith. In that state of 
of things a pious clergyman or prince was of great 
service in giving centralization to some extent to 
the scattered piety of the christian world. The most 
conspicuous example of that kind, within the period of 
which we are now speaking, was that of Alfred, King of 
England, with his immediate successors, Edward and 
Athelstane. Alfred was king from 871 to 900, and his 
son and grandson successively maintained his improve- 
ments until 940. Subsequently England was harassed 
by Danish invasion, under which state and church alike 
suffered a new and deeper depression, until all England, 
came under the rule of the Danish king Canute. A brief 
attempt at better government by that wise monarch was 
followed by new disorders, until the kingdom was over- 
whelmed by the Norman conquest, in 1066. 

7. In the same year in which Leo IX. died, 1054, all 
intercourse between the eastern and western catholic 
churches came to an end. A letter from the patriarch 
of Constantinople to a friend, commenting on the errors 
and abuses of the west, was responded to with great bit- 
terness. Papal delegates were sent to Constantinople 
who attempted to treat the Patriarch as a subject of the 
Pope. Their Pretensions were not allowed. They laid 
an act of excommunication upon the great altar of St. 
Sophia, to which the patriarch responded with an ana- 
thema. And thus, on the 16th of July 1054, the two 
great hierarchs parted forever. 

8. It was at the same juncture, when the Popes 
entirely separated from the eastern church, that they 
began to adopt those measures of policy which eventuated 
in maturing the Papal system, and in carrying it to a 
real domination over the west. The next period is that 
of the highest papal prosperity. 

VII. 1054—1305. 

In the year 1054, upon the death of Leo IX., Hilde- 
brand "first undertook to manage the papal elections. 
The policy of his adoption continued, in the main, suc- 
cecsful until the quarrel with the King of France, which 



1()8 

issued in removal of the papal residence to Avignon, in 
1305. The interval is a true historical period possessing 
features of its own, to be found no where else. It pre- 
sents the maturity of the Papacy, within which that sys- 
tem exercised the highest and widest authority it was ever 
permitted to wield. Secondly, it was the time of con- 
troversy between the German Emperors and the Popes. 
A third feature was the scholastic theology ; a fourth, 
the Crusades ; and a fifth, the progressive quickening of 
intellect, as manifested in the increase of dissenting 
religious sects, ineipieney of popular song, and rise and 
progress of schools, and universities. 

1. During the pontificate of Leo IX., 'Hildebrand, 
now a cardinal subdeacon, improved every opportunity 
to increase his influence ; and succeeded in putting him- 
self at the head of a paity seeking to correct abuses in 
the church, which had long been found incorrigible. 
Three objects he had in view; first the removal of 
Simony, and lay interference in church matters; second, 
to repress the immorality of the clergy, and third to 
bind all the elements of the Papacy into such a system 
as to realize ths supremacy to which it aspired. A grand 
conception that of a dominion constructed, by means of 
a perfectly organized hierarchy, upon the basis of religion 
and morals, and subordinating to itself all the other 
powers and dignities of earth, but it had only a mechani- 
cal relation to the kingdom of Christ. It was not 
entirely new. It had certainly been entertained by some 
of the gifted popes of the ninth century. But Hilder- 
brand recognized and retrieved its elements from the 
degradation to which thev had been reduced in a long 
career of papal profligacy, and reconstructed them, under 
the most favorable circumstances, with the greatest effect. 

Execution of the design began with enforcing the 
celebacy of the clergy; and much to that end was done 
by Leo IX.; but the pivot of the whole was in the papal 
elections, which Hildebrand never suffered to escape 
from his control. By application to the emperor he 
obtained the appointment of the candidate of his choice 
as successor to Leo. Gebhardt bishop of Eichstadt, an 
influential counsellor of the Emperor, and centre of an 






109 

antipapal party in the north, was a manifold gain to the 
cause of papal reform. Me took the papal name of 
Victor II., and continued in office until his death in 1057. 
Meanwhile in 1056 the Emperor Henry III. died, leaving 
his oldest son, a child of six years under the regency 
of the Empress. In those circumstances, t lie reform- 
ing party had no difficulty in electing their own candi- 
date, who took the name Stephen IX. During Hilde- 
drand's ahsence from Rome, Stephen died; and the 
opposite party elected Benedict X. Ilildebrand, on his 
return succeeded in reversing that action, ami in setting 
up Nicholas If Under Nicholas a law was enacted to 
regulate papal elections, ordaining that the pope should 
be elected from the cardinals, and by the college of car- 
dinals. At this juncture the reforming party secured 
the support of the Normans, who had recently taken 
possession of Naples and Sicily. 

When Nicholas II. died, in 1061, the pope elected by 
the opposing party with the sanction of the empress was 
constrained to give place to Alexander II. elected by the 
cardinals alone. In 1073, after the death of Alexander, 
the choice of the cardinals fell upon Ilildebrand who 
took the name Gregory VII. The young emperor Henry 
IV. was now on the throne. Pope Alexander had ex- 
communicated some of the imperial counsellors, and 
demanded their removal from court. But they had been 
retained in favor. Hildebrand took up the cause, and 
called upon the emperor to comply with the papal 
demand. Henry, at the first admonition, was engaged 
in war, and replied by a submissive, letter. And so the 
matter rested for that time. 

But the authority assumed by the new pope was such 
as upon being more fully unfolded, the emperor per- 
ceived he could not allow. The policy of Gregory VII., 
not declared all at once, but evinced in the course of his 
pontificate, and abundantly stated in his epistles, and 
succinctly epitomized in the Dietatus Gregorii, aimed at 
establishing the Papacy as an absolute despotism over all 
the powers and potentates of earth, ecclesiastical and 
civil, and arrogated for it, even from monarchs. the pro- 
fession of homage bv acts the most abject and degrading. 



110 

But the office, during the twenty years of his preceding 
counsels, had gained immensely by the removal of moral 
corruption, by the systematizing of its business, by the 
dignified regularity of elections, and frequent and con- 
sistent assertion of its sovereignty before a public well 
prepared to admit them. The subjection of the clergy, 
on the footing of celibacy, and isolation from the com- 
mon interests of society, had been, in the maim, effected. 
And the Reformer was now prepared to enter upon the 
third part of his project, namely the removal of simony, 
and of lay interference in the church. To achieve that 
he must begin with the source from which that widely 
ramified evil proceeded, at the court of the emperor, and 
with the case of episcopal investiture. The occasion 
which led to actual hostilities was the excommunica- 
tion of certain imperial counsellors for simony, and the 
emperor's failure to remove them from his service. 

That case stood in suspense for over two years. 
Meanwhile at a Synod in Rome (1075,) it was decreed 
that if any person should accept a bishopric, or an abbacy 
from the hands of a layman, he should not be regarded 
as a bishop or an abbot, nor allowed to enter a church, 
until he had given up the illegal claim : and all laymen, 
of whatever rank, who should bestow such investiture, 
were to be excluded from church communion. Next 
year, Gregory summoned the emperor to appear before 
him in Rome, on pain of anathema, if he failed to obey. 
He did not obey ; but on the contrary, called a council of 
German bishops at Worms, and had a sentence of deposi- 
tion passed againstthe pope. Gregory forwith issued his 
excommunication of the emperor, declaring him incom- 
petent to reign any longer, and forbade his subjects to 
obey him. He also excommunicated the assembly at 
Worms. The subjects of the emperor were divided. 
The princes met at Tribur, and resolved that he should 
not reign until he had obtained removal of the excom- 
munication ; and appointed a council to meet at Augs- 
burg to try him, in which trial the pope was to preside. 
Henry hurried into Italy, and met the pope at Canossa: 
but obtained admittance to his presence only after a most 
humiliating penance of three days before the door of the 



Ill 

castle. He obtained remission of his punishment, and 
then, once more emperor, thought of revenge for his 
humiliation. The pope was now in danger. His party in 
Germany elected a new emperor, Rudolph of Suabia. 
War ensued, which lasted several years. The pope 
renewed the excommunication. The emperor renewed 
his act of deposing the pope, and added to that the elec- 
tion of another pope, Clement III., whom he took to 
Koine, and enthroned by force of arms. Meanwhile 
Kudolph died. The full weight of the imperial arm now 
fell upon the pope, who found refuge among the Nor- 
mans of Naples, and died at Salerno, May 25, 1085 
Thus the first attempt at coercing the emperor failed. 

Pope Clement III. reigned in Rome. But the Gre- 
gorian party elected their own pope, Victor III., and 
when he died, in 1087, continued the succession by elect- 
ing Urban II. For more than ten years the emperor 
retained his advantage, and the Gregorian part}* remained 
under depression, until the enthusiasm of the first Cru- 
sade swept away everything before it. Of that move- 
ment Urban was the organizing power. On its tide he 
was carried to Rome in triumph. Military resources 
were withdrawn from the emperor by the irresistible 
attraction of the Crusade. Pope Clement unsustained, 
ceased to be of any importance. He survived his rival a 
few months, but in such reduced circumstances of hie 
party that upon his death no successor could take his 
place. The first Crusade was the real triumph of Hilde- 
brand. From that juncture the fortunes of Henry IV. 
declined. Urban II. died July 29, 1099, just fourteen 
days after the Crusaders had entered Jerusalem. But 
his successor, Pascal II., pursued the same policy. The 
emperor, reduced in resources, was persecuted with ana- 
themas, his son encouraged to rebel against him, and his 
subjects to revolt, until broken down in health and spirit, 
he retired to private life, and died in poverty, 1106. 

The same year, the controversy about investitures in 
England was settled by the pope giving his sanction to 
the practice of churchmen, holding benefices, taking the 
oath of fealty to the king. The king of France also fell 
under papal excommunication, to which he submitted, 
and was absolved. 



112 

In the history of the papacy, the next two hundred 
years were occupied with a struggle to maintain that 
elevation of supremacy secured in the end of the 
eleventh. In some quarters it was held with great diffi- 
culty ; in others it was increased; sometimes the pope 
seemed on the verge of failure; for his supremacy over 
the state was, even iu its best days, of precarious tenure; 
but some favorable event always turned up to restore him 
to his vantage ground : and in the last emergency, his 
refuge was in popular superstition and commotion, 
especially a crusade, in which he was always looked to 
by western Europe as the head of Christendom. The 
question of investitures was settled with the empire, 1122, 
by a comprise, in which the monarch invested with the 
temporalities and the pope with the spiritual office, and 
symbols were chosen accordingly. 

With the death of Henry V. in 1125, the imperial 
dynasty of Franconia came to an end. Lothaire of Sax- 
onv was elected in the papal interest. During his rei^n 
the papacy enjoyed the full support of the civil power, 
but was divided by a schism within itself most of the 
time. Lothaire III. died in 1137, and the new and more 
potent dynasty of the Hohenstanfen, the ducal line of 
Suabia came to the throne in the person of Conrad III. 
In the interest of that imperial house, a party was formed, 
which received the name Waibelingen, or Ghibelline, 
opposed to the Guelphs, or Saxon party, which sustained 
the pope. For ages these two. factions distracted Italy 
and the empire. 

iVrnold of Brescia, a young priest, had come from 
study of Scripture to the conviction that the clergy should 
hold no estate; but live upon the free will offerings of 
ihe church; and that priests of corrupt morals were by 
that fact no longer priests at all. Some of his views 
accorded with the efforts at that time made by some 
Italian cities to secure their independence, and were 
accepted very extensively. Arnold was condemned by 
the Lateran council of 1139. But his opinions prevailed 
with a great majority of the people even in Rome. A 
revolution was contemplated, in which the temporal 
sovereignty of the Pope was to be abolished, and the 



113 

ancient republican government restored. The insurgents 
occupied the Capitol. Pope Lucius II. was killed in the 
attempt to reduce them by force. His successor Eugeiiius 
III. lied to France, and awaited some favorable turn of 
affairs. He had not long to wait. The Kingdom of Jeru- 
salem, hard pressed by the Saracens, who had taken the 
city of Edessa, was calling aloud to Europe for relief. 
By the preaching of Bernard of Olairvaux, and others, 
the crusading frenzy was aroused once more. A vast 
army was raised and marched off to Palestine in 1147 
under command of the Emperor Conrad III., and King 
Louis VII. of France. Inferior interests lost their hold 
upon the public mind. Zeal for the crusade absorbed 
all. Once more the Pope was the highest dignitary in 
Europe. Eugenius was restored to Rome and protected 
by the arms of Roger of Sicily. The second crusade 
failed in the east; but it buoyed up the papal cause at 
home. By the address of Adrian IV., who came to the 
papal chair in 1154, the Romans were induced to banish 
Arnold. The Emperor Frederic Barbarossa marched an 
army into the north of Italy and reduced the Lombard 
towns. Arnold was surrendered into his hands, and by 
him transferred to the pope. The Pope hanged him, 
burned his body and cast the ashes into the Tiber. 
Arnold was the victim, over whose immolation the 
Emperor and the Pope held a common rejoicing and for 
the time reconciled their differences. 

It was Pope Adrian IV. who in 1155 granted to Henry 
II. of England to conquer Ireland, on the condition of 
annexing it to the Roman See. A few years later, a 
papal attempt to make the clergy of England indepen- 
dent of the crown to connect them more intimately with 
Rome, gave occasion to the meeting at Clarendon, in 
1164, which drew up the celebrated Clarendon Constitu- 
tions, one of the oldest documents lying at the basis of 
English freedom. The articles were sixteen, designed to 
limit Papal aggressions, and make the clergy amen- 
able, in some degree, like other men to laws of the land. 
Becket the archbishop of Canterbury and the whole 
body of the English clergy took oath to observe them. 
But the articles being condemned by the Pope, Becket 



114 

changed his mind and broke his oath, upon obtaining papal 
absolution. His subsequent conduct was that of rebel- 
lion against the king, and directed to sustain papalism 
in England. It led to a dispute between him and the 
king in which he lied to the continent. A reconciliation 
took place. But after restoration, Becket returned to his 
former practices. Four English knights, hearing the 
king express himself angrily about the matter, went to 
Canterbury and slew Becket while at service in church. 
(1170). The King was blamed, and four years later was 
constrained to do penance at Becket's tomb. 

Pope Alexander III. (1159-1181) assumed, in recog- 
nizing the independence of Portugal, to grant to the 
kings of that country the right to as much land as they 
could conquer from the Mohammedans* 

In 1183 the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa made 
peace with the Lombards, secured the favor of the Ger- 
man clergy, and by the marriage of his son to the heir- 
ess of Sicily, attached that wealthy island to his dynasty. 
The strength of the papal support was thereby divided, 
while insurrection raged within the papal estates. Lucius 
III. and Urban III. were successively expelled from 
Pome. 

But again the papacy was saved by a crusade. Sala- 
din had taken Jerusalem, (1187), and all Europe was 
roused to a new effort for recovery of the holy places. 
The emperor put himself at the head of it, May, 1189, 
marching bv land. He lost his life in Asia Minor, and 
his army perished at the seige ol Acre. Two other [tor- 
tious of the great army were led by Philip Augustus of 
France, and Richard I. of England. With all the armies 
led out, and prodigies of valor, on the part of the crusa- 
ders, little was effected. Philip Augustus, hoon after the 
seige of Acre, returned home; and Richard, after taking 
Joppa and Askelon, learning that the King of France 
was projecting an invasion of England, concluded a 
peace of three years with Saladin, and left Palestine, 
Sept. 1192. Meanwhile the Pone had brought Rome to 
submission, and re-established his authority, and the 
early death of the new emperor, Henry VI., removed the 
danger threatening from his possession of Sicily in right 



115 

of his wife. The heir of the imperial house was a child 
only three years of age. when the most successful of all 
popes began his pontificate. Henry VI. died Sept. 28, 
1197, and Innocent III. ascended the chair of the papacy, 
on the 8th of January following. 

Circumstances favored the new pope in a remarkable 
manner. Rome had been pacified. The death of the 
emperor gave place to a long contested succession, the 
empress Constantia, heiress of Sicily, to secure that 
dominion for her son, accepted investiture from the Pope, 
and on the eve of her death which took place before the 
end of 1198, constituted him guardian of the infant 
prince, while both France and England were enfeebled 
by the crusade, and by mutually threatened war. No 
other pontiff ever realized to the same extent the Gre- 
gorian idea of the papacy. King John of England who 
attempted to disregard his mandate, was brought to sub- 
mission by an interdict, laid upon his kingdom, and was 
restored only upon accepting his crown as a gift of the 
pope, and recognizing England as a province of the 
Roman See. This led to the meeting of the barons at 
Runnymede, 1215, and the drawing up of the Magna 
Charter., which they compelled their unworthy king to 
sign, as some security then and afterwards against such 
alienation of themselves and their country. 

Innocent III. also organized a crusade. It never 
reached Palestine, but instead of that, beseiged and took 
Constantinople, in 1204, and set up there a Latin King. 
Whereupon the popp. reasserted his jurisdiction in the 
eastern empire ; but without obtaining acknowledg- 
ment by the Greek church. The most successful crusade 
of Innocent III. was that against thp Albigenses : a 
numerous dissenting sect, in the south of France. Rom- 
ish arguments failing to convince them, armies were 
marched into their country, which in successive years, 
from 1209, covered it with slaughter and desolation. 

In 1215, Innocent called a council in Rome, the fourth 
Lateran, or, according to Romish reckoning, the twelfth 
ecunenical, at which various important questions per- 
taining to Romish doctrine and practice were authorita- 
tively settled. At that point Papalism reached the 



116 

apex of its prosperity. Innocent died next year, but 
where he left it the elevation of success remained station- 
ary through all the reign of his successor, Honorius III., 
that is until 1227. The imperious ill temper of Gregory 
IX., renewed the vexatious quarrel with the empire, and 
led the way in a course of poliey which ultimately 
reduced it, but also dragged into humiliation his own 
office. 

• Frederic II. was constrained to undertake a crusade. 
Because he delayed in carrying it out Gregory excom- 
municated him : and after he set out followed him with 
excommunication. Frederic was successful, recaptured 
Jerusalem, and secured a treaty of peace for the christ- 
ians of Palestine for ten years; but found, on returning 
home that he had to wage war with the Pope. From 
this time, it was the papal purpose to break down the 
Suabian dynasty, and secure the election of more com- 
pliant occupants of the imperial throne. Unrelentingly 
was that policy pursued until, after the early death 
of Frederic's successor, Conrad, in 1254, another 
minority and regency occurred. Advantage was taken 
of that juncture to invite Charles of Anjou to assume 
possession of Sicily. The attempt of the young Con- 
radin to defend his father's dominion failed. And the 
last heir of the Hohenstaufen taken prisoner perished on 
the scaffold, (1268), and Charles of Anjou, brother of 
Louis IX. of France, became king of Sicily in the papal 
interest. Five years later, the equally papal house of 
Hapsburg was elevated to the throne of the greatly 
reduced empire, in the person of Rudolph. 

But already the long train of papal losses had begun. 
In 1261, the Greeks, under Michael Pahieologus, recovered 
possession of Constantinople and expelled the Latin gov- 
ernment. A subsequent attempt, at the council of Lyons, 
1274, to establish papal jurisdiction in the east, was 
agreed to by the eastern emperor, but defeated by 
the refusal of the Greek Church to comply. The attempt 
gave rise to other fabrications in support of the Payacy. 

French rule in Sicily proved intensely- unpopular. 
It was expelled by the insurrection, called the Sicilian 
Vespers, March 30, 1282, and the government put into 
the hands of the King of Aragon. 



117 

The seventh and last Crusade to Palestine was led by 
Louis IX. of France and Prince Edward of England in 
1270. Louis died at Tunis. Edward reached Palestine, 
but could only delay the fate of Acre, by exortinga truce 
of three years. In 1291 Acre fell into the hands of the 
Mohammedans, and the whole was over. 

The crusades were the wars of the Papacy for its own 
cause when that cause was identified witli the interests 
of Christianity in the west. Their termination was not 
only the loss of an effective weapon, but also a symptom 
of declining influence ovev the christian public. 

But a more serious calamity befel the Papacy in the 
the dispute which arose between Boniface VIII. and 
Philip the fair, King of France, in which the King, on 
principles of law, resisted a Papal mandate, and when the 
Pope attempted to enforce it, sent a commission into 
Italy, which arrested him. The indignity so affected 
Boniface as to throw him into a fever, of which he died 
Oct. 11, 1303. The next Pontiff, Benedict XI. did not 
press the offensive demands ; and after his death, Kino; 
Philip succeeded in getting his own candidate elected 
who was pledged to remain in Frauce. Clement 
V. took up his residence at Avignon, in 1305. And 
the proudest days of the papacy were over. 

In the Papal history of this period there was more 
concerned than superstition and submission, on the one 
hand, and ambition on the other. There was extraordi- 
nary intellectual power, and an unscrupulous use of both 
force and fraud, and that continued with little abatement 
or exception, for two hundred and fifty years. The series 
of events may be comprehended under the following 
heads. 

1. Reform and reorganization of the Papaey, 1054 

1085. 

2. Its first success, in war with the Empire, by means 
of the first crusade, 1099. 

3. Its success in the controversy about investitures 
1122. 

4. A long period of power balanced between the ris- 
ing free spirit of Northern Italy, the Normans of the 
South, and the German empire, sustained at great junc- 
tures by the second and third crusades until, 1198. 



118 

5. The summit of success under Innocent III. and 
HonoriusIIL, 1198-1227. 

6. The strife for supreme temporal power witli the 
imperial dynasty of Suabia, until the overthrow of the 
latter, and elevation of the obedient house of Hapsburg, 
1227-1273. 

7. Papal losses — loss of Constantinople, 1261. 
Failure of the plan of union devised at the council of 

Lyons, 1274-1282. 
Loss ensuing from the Sicilian Vespers, 1282. 
Final failure" of the Crusades, 1291. 
The disastrous controversy with Philip the Fair, ending 

in the removal from Rome, 1305. 
2. With the schools, founded or patronized by 
Charlemagne, there were always connected some men of 
letters. During the tenth century, and first half of the 
eleventh, the series was very slender. Through Erigena, 
Gottschalk, Paschasius Radbert, and a few others, in the 
middle of the ninth century; Hincmar and Ratramnus, 
in the latter part of it, the line is barely continued by a 
few such men as Luitprand of Cremona, and Ratherins 
of Verona, to Gerbert, (Pope Sylvester II.) who died in 
the beginning of the eleventh century, and Fulbert of 
Chart-res, who flourished in its first quarter. Towards 
the middle of the century, a little more literary effort be- 
gan to appear. Then we read of Humbert, Peter Dami- 
ani, Lanfranc, Berengarius, and Hildebrand, (Pope Gre- 
ory VII.), in the course of whose lives, we come to that 
class of writers called Schoolmen, or Scholastics, and 
who were, at the same time, the philosophers and theo- 
logians of the Middle ages. 

True scholasticism was the application of logic, with 
a peculiar subtlety to the dogmas of the Romish church. 
Earlier christian writers had drawn their philosophy 
chiefly from Plato ; now the Platonic elements were com- 
prehended in and subjected to Aristotelian methods, as 
far as the latter were known through the partial transla- 
tion of Boethius : for Aristotelian induction seems to 
have been unknown. 

Augustinian theology was their recognized orthodoxy. 
But the practical teaching of the church, which, on some 



119 

points had departed from that standard, controlled the 
arguments of most of them. Some advanced doctrines 
which were censured as heretical, but in the main, scholas- 
tics were the advocates of the church as it then stood. 

The history of that class of writers begins properly 
in the course of controversy on the Eucharist, in the 
latter half of the eleventh century. At that date, a zeal- 
ous opponent of transubstantiation was Berengarius 
bishop of Tours. The subject was still an open question, 
in as far as any adequate authority was concened. It had* 
been decided only by popular consent. Berengarius, 
from about 1045, publicly taught that the bread and wine 
in the Eucharist are only external symbols of Christ's 
body and blood. His argument was immediately con- 
troverted by several writers, who advocated the popular 
belief that in consecration by the priest, the sacramental 
elements became the real body and blood of the Lord. 
Berengarius was condemned in 1050, by no less than 
three councils, at Rome, Vercelli, and Paris. He was 
deprived of his revenues and degraded. Subsequently, 
Pope Victor II. was induced to send legates to Tours to 
investigate the matter. On one of those occasions, 
thp. legate was Hildebrand, who seems to have been 
disposed to treat the subject leniently. But the clergy 
as a whole were not satisfied. Berengarius was after- 
wards brought to trial before a council at Rome, where a 
definite statement of doctrine was prescribed for him to 
sign, fie submitted ; but afterwards repented of the 
submission, and held to his former doctrine. He died 
in 1088. 

It was in this controversy that Lanfranc, prior of Bee, 
and subsequently archbishop of Canterbury, taking up 
the defence of transubstantiation, employed that sub- 
tlety of dialetics, which was carried to greater length by 
a long array of writers who came after him. In the 
hands of Anselm, his immediate successor in Canterbury, 
1093 — 1109, it reached its early maturity and perhaps its 
best. 

The history of scholasticism divides itself into three 
periods : from" 1045 to 1164, from 1164 to 1308, and from 
1308 until the eve of the reformation. The tirst, from 



120 

the beginning of the controversy with Berengarius, until 
the death of Peter Lombard, 1164, labored in lectures 
and controversial tracts. A new period opened in the 
very general adoption of Peter Lombard's Book of Sen- 
tences as a guide for lecturers on theology, whereby 
scholasticism was turned to the systematic treatment of 
the whole body of theology. In that direction its high- 
est results were reached in the works of Thomas Aqui- 
nas, and Duns Scotus. With the death of the latter, 
■1308, begins the period of scholastic decline, during 
which it was also gradually overmastered by the reviving 
classic, and the broader growth of modern literature 

An inner controversy, on Philosophic ground, early 
divided scholastics into two parties as Realists and Nom- 
inalists. Nominalism soon fell under censure of the 
church, and gave place to a modification, which is better 
named conceptualism. Realism was favored by the 
church. 

Another division, on the ground of faith, separated 
among them, the Rationalist from the Mystic, as, for ex- 
ample, Abelard from Bernard, and from both, a media- 
ting party, as the Theologians of St. Victor. In their 
later history, they were divided also between Franciscan 
imd Dominican monks. 

The progress of Scholasticism carried with it the 
improvement of the schools, which from the poor con- 
ventual instruction of the eleventh century was expanded 
until it blossomed into the Universities of the twelfth 
and thirteenth. 

Scholastic freedom of speculation lay in treatment of 
points concerning which Scripture gives only indistinct 
hints, and the church had yet pronounced no positive 
dogma, but they also analysed with apparent freedom 
every doctrine of the creed. And some ventured into a 
bolder freedom, which exposed them to heresy. David 
of Dinant, for example, and Amalric of Bena were by 
their method of thinking led into Pantheism, and other 
philosophical errors. 

On some points their conclusions prepared the way 
for the authoritative adontion, as dogmas, of what had 
previously been only optional beliefs; as in the case of 



121 

works of supererogation ; the number of the sacraments, 
definition of the doctrine of penance and of priestly abso- 
lution, and trausubstantiation. 

The more eminent Scholastics carried forward phil- 
osophy in a real progress, beyond all that had ever been 
done before, in its relations to theology : profoundly 
weighing the philosophical import of doctrines : and 
although much trifling may be quoted from their later 
writers, yet to the labors of Abelard, of Peter Lombard, 
of Bonaventura, of Thomas Aquinas, and others, of the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we owe the first kind- 
ling of modern Europe to intellectual pursuits, the first 
scattering of light into the depths of mediaeval darkness, 
the first philosophy which western Europe could call her 
own, and the first classification in scientific form of 
christian theology. 

Some of the Scholastics also opened the way to mod- 
ern scientific investigation. Such were Albertus Magnus 
and Roger Bacon. 

3. During the same period the principal part of the 
work was done for the Canon Law which conferred upon 
it the completness of its form. About the middle of the 
12th century, the Decretum of Gratian issued from the 
celebrated law University of Bologna. Subsequently 
large collections from the decretals of later popes were 
added to it, under the names of Decretals and Extrava- 
gantes. And thus grew up the Corpus Juris Canonici. 

4. Various councils successively gave their sanction 
to elements of doctrine, discipline and worship, which 
had previously grown up among the people, and in ec- 
clesiastical practice. Of those the most important was 
the Fourth Lateran, which confirmed the policy of Inno- 
cent, III., established the practice of indulgence, and the 
doctrine of works of supererogation, of confession to a 
priest as indispensable to obtaining pardon of sin, and 
of trausubstantiation as belonging to the creed of the 
church, and the duty of exterminating heretics. 

5. Attempts were made, from time to time, to restore 
union between the Greek and Roman catholic churches, 
but without effect. The most strenuous effort to that 
end was made at the council of Lyons, in 1274. The 



122 

Pope and the Greek Emperor with some bishops were 
agreed. But nothing could bend the Greek church into 
compliance. After trying for a few years by severe mea- 
sures, to constrain his people, the Emperor acknowledged 
his discomfiture; and Rome ignored the compact which 
could not be carried into effect. As soon as the emperor 
died, 1282, the Greek church formally repudiated the 
whole plan of reunion, and severely censured all who had 
in any way been concerned in it. 

6. During the period of the schoolmen, the literature 
of the Greek church continued in a depressed condition. 
The schoohistics were the fruit of reviving intellectual 
activity in the west ; were themselves the beginning of a 
process of improvement. But no such process had yet 
begun in the east. Literary culture had not descended 
so low in that quarter; but it exhibited no such signs of 
a new vitality. The Eastern Empire was still protracting 
its long decline, struggling for existence with the Mo- 
hammedans. And the energies of the Greeks were 
crushed under the discouragements of their adverse for- 
tunes. Several literary names of distinction appear 
among them ; but none as connected with any original 
line of thought. Most worthy of mention were The- 
ophylact archbishop of Bulgaria, d. 1112, commentator 
on several books of Scripture ; John Zonaras, one of the 
best of the Byzantine historians, and Eustathius, arch- 
bishop of Thessalonica, (d. 1198) who, besides sermons, 
wrote a copious and valuable commentary on Homer. 

7. Among the churches of the further east there were 
also some writers of distinction. Such were Ebed-Jesu 
(d. 1318) metropolitan of Nisibis, among the Nestorians ; 
Verses (d. 1173} among the Armenians, and Dionysius 
Bar Silibi, bishop of Amida, d. 1171, among the Jacob- 
ites ; in which connection appears also the more illustri- 
ous name of Abulfarage (Bar Hebraeus) (d. 1286), and 
that of George Elmacin, historian of the Saracens. 

8. With the Jews this w r as a period of great scholar- 
ship, when Solomon Iarchi (d. 1105) of Troyes, Aben 
Ezra of Toledo (d. 1167), David Kimchi of Narbonne 
(d. about 1230), and Moses Ben Maimon, or Maimonides, 
(d. 1205) of Cordova, labored in the interpretation of the 
Old Testament. 



123 

9. It was also the flourishing period of that Arabic 
philosophy, which had no little to do with the revival of 
philosophical studies in the christian west, Avicenna died 
in 1036 ; Al Gazali in 1127, and Averoes in 1217. Upon 
the whole there was an extensive quickening of intellect 
in the direction of philosophy. 

10. Among the monasteries irregularities again pre- 
vailed. Before the twelfth century had far advanced, 
even Cluny had itself had begun to degenerate. Great 
efforts were made to restore discipline, and to set up 
new monasteries w T ith severer rules. Some of the orders 
were suppressed on account of their scandalous immo- 
rality. Still, the conviction prevailed that the proper 
way to correct these evils was to establish new orders on 
a better plan. Pope Innocent III., thought proper to 
interfere, and forbade the creation of any more orders : 
and the Lateran council of 1215 took action to same effect. 
Notwithstanding, two other orders were sanctioned un- 
der his rule, and established soon afterwards, which 
proved of more influeuce in the church and in the world 
than all the preceding had been. 

The active apostolic piety and missionary labor of the 
poor Waldensian ministers, and the progress of dissent- 
ing opinions in the south of France, and adjoining dis- 
tricts, arrested the attention, and alarmed the fears of the 
Romish ecclesiastics. Dominic of Osma in Spain, and 
Francis of Assisi, in Italy, about the same time, conceiv- 
ed of similar plans for the conversion of those so called 
heretics. Francis began in 1207 to assemble about him 
a body of men, whom he solemnly laid under obligation 
to forego all earthly possessions, enjoyments and 
knowledge, and devote themselves solely to travel- 
ling, and preaching the doctrines of Rome. They were 
to be called the Ordo Fratrum Minorum. As such they 
received the Oral sanction of Innocent III., in 1209, and 
were fully established by Honorius III., in 1223. After 
their example, an order of nuns was instituted, that of 
Sta. Clara, with. a regula drawn up by Francis. He also 
organized an Ordo tertius de Pcenitentia, for pious laymen, 
who living in their own houses, and enjoying their own 
property, with their families, maintained a sort of spirit- 
ual union under a superior. 



124 

Dominic, who had been employed from 1205 in try- 
ing to convert the Albigenses, by preaching, conceived a 
similar idea. It was that of an order, which, unincum- 
bered by property, should travel through that country 
preaching the doctrines of the catholic church. In 1215 
the plan was proposed to Innocent III. who would grant 
it nothing more than his oral permission. But it was 
fully sanctioned next year by Honorius III., under the 
name of the Ordo Predicatorum. Monks of that order are 
more commonly called, by the name of their founder, 
Dominican, or from their garb, Black Friars; as the or- 
der of Francis is generally called Franciscan, or Minor- 
ites, or Grey Friars. The Dominicans also constituted 
Tertiaries. 

These were the principal mendicant orders, by whom 
preaching, long neglected in the catholic church, was 
revived. Indirectly they conspired with the lecturers in 
the schools to promote the awakening spirit of inquiry, 
relatively doing for the populace a work similar to what 
the lecturers were accomplishing in the schools. Ulti- 
mately, they became also the lecturers, and occupied the 
most prominent places as scholastic writers. Departing 
in course of time from their original design, they de- 
parted also from the rule of poverty. On that subject 
the Franciscans divided. The stricter party adhering 
to the rule, formed themselves into a separate order, 
which received the name of Fraticelli 

11. About the end of the twelfth century there sprang 
up, in some towns in the Netherlands, societies of women, 
who without monastic vows, lived together under rules 
of their own adoption, and maintained themselves from 
their own property. They were called Beguinae. Dur- 
ing the thirteenth century, they increased in France and 
Germany, as well as in the Netherlands, to a great num- 
ber. 

Similar societies were also formed of men, and those 
who belonged to them were called Beguini, or Beghards. 
Latterly they connected themselves with the tertiary or- 
ders of the Franciscans and Dominicans. 

Through the mendicant preaching orders and their 
tertiaries. the cloister opened its doors to the world. 



125 

12. The clergy claimed exemption from trial by civil 
tribunals, and the popes labored zealously to withdraw 
them altogether from secular jurisdiction. Only eccle- 
siastical courts were held competent to try them. And 
from all tribunals they claimed the right of appeal to the 
pope. In few countries were those claims fully realized. 

13. From various causes, great wealth came into the 
hands of ecclesiastics, leading to much conflict between 
the spiritual and temporal authorities. 

14. In the course ef the twelfth century, the Latin 
church, in administering the Eucharist, gradually, in one 
place after another, adopted the practice of withholding 
the cup from the laity. Pope Pascal II. opposed inno- 
vation, and ordered that the bread and wine should be 
both administered. After his time, the opposite opinion 
gained ground. Bv the Greek church the sacramental 
elements were mingled. 

15. iSigns of intellectual activity began to appear 
among the people, as well as in the church schools. They 
consisted ehieiiv in the rise of religious dissent, and of 
an incipient popular literature. 

The varieties of religious dissent may be classed 
under the heads of Paulicians, Cathari, Waldenses, and 
independent orders. 

16. The Paulicians, in their long persecution in the 
ninth century, were scattered to both east and west, be- 
yond the bounds of the Greek empire. At the end of 
those sufferings, a considerable number of them were 
found resident among the Slavic population on the lower 
Danube. Whence it is probable they spread their doc- 
trines further west, and in more tolerant times found 
their way back into the empire. In the reign of Alexius 
Comuenus (1081 — 1118) the city of Philippopolis in 
Thrace was entirely under their influence. That em- 
peror undertook to convert them; and removed his resi- 
dence, for a time, to Philippopolis, with that view. By 
force of authority, by persuasion, and rewards to those 
who professed themselves convinced by his arguments, 
he succeeded in reducing the heresy in that region. But 
instead of it another arose. For a long time before, a 
party had existed among them, called Euchites, or Mes- 



126 

salians, whe had exercised some inflaence upon the de- 
velopment of Paulician doctrine. From that connection 
arose the Bogomili, who made their first appearance in 
the latter years of the same Emperor. In 1116 Alexius 
obtained the confidence of their leader Basilius. by a 
treacherous artifice, and put him to death. But the sect 
maintained its ground within the empire, especially 
about Philippopolis. 

17. In their peculiar doctrines and customs, the Bogo- 
mili agreed closely with those of the Cathari of the west 
of Europe. That relationship is also sustained histori- 
cally. It is admitted that the Cathari proceeded from 
the Sclavonians of Bulgaria, at least as early as the mid- 
dle of the eleventh century : and had extended their 
societies to almost every country of Europe, before they 
were discovered. From Bulgaria they spread into 
Thrace, and became a large sect even in Constantinople. 
Also into Dalmatia and Albania, where they were called 
Albanenses. Westward they gained converts in large 
numbers, as far as the Netherlands, England, France, 
Spain, and Italy. In France, they were frequently called 
the Ordo Bulgaria?, or Balgari, Gallicised into various 
abbreviations. In some places, they were called Popll- 
cani, Patarina, or Passagieri. They divided the popular 
faith in Provence with the Waldenses. In Lombardy 
and Florence, in the States of the Church, in Calabria 
and Sicily, Catharian congregations existed for a long 
time. But it was in Lombardy and the South of France 
where they were strongest. The Albigenses were both 
Waldensian and Catharian. As early as 1022, persons of 
Catharian views were burned to death at Orleans. 

18. Touching the origin of the Waldenses, there is 
difference of opinion. But we know that they are men- 
tioned as existing among the Alps in the twelfth century, 
and not as a new sect at that time. Their name is not 
derived from that of a man, but from their place of resi- 
dence in certain valleys of the Cottian Alps, on the 
Italian side. Their eastern border is about thirty miles 
in a southwest direction from Turin. Their records have 
been sought out to be destroyed, with persevering malig- 
nity by their enemies. 



127 

By Catholic writers their doctrines were greatly mis- 
represented. But more favored than most sects of that 
time, they survive to speak for themselves. They hold 
substantially the same views of scripture truth as are 
held by Evangelical Protestants. 

In Northern Italy, Catharian doctrine together with 
the opinions of Arnold of Brescia, coincided with the 
efforts of the Lombards to wrest their freedom from the 
Pope and Emperor. 

19. Among dissenting orders we must include the 
stricter branch of the Franciscans, the Fraticelli, who 
opposed as firmly as any others, the worldliness and 
luxury prevailing in the church, and incurred as much 
persecution, with the Beguinae and Beghards, and 
Apostolicals, besides certain fanatical orders, which were 
early suppressed. 

20. In order to complete the work of exterminating 
heretics, begun with such fearful scene 3 of bloodshed in 
the crusade against the Albii>'enses, and to organize a 
system whereby the church should always eradicate the 
first appearance of heresy, it was made the business of 
the Diocesan Synods to search out and punish eveiw be- 
ginning of divergence from the faith of Rome. Every 
Archbishop and Bishop was directed to visit, either 
personally or through some suitable agent, the parish of 
his diocese, in which any heretics were reported to be, 
and to pat under oath any of the inhabitants whom he 
chose, to point out the suspected. Refusal to take the 
oath justified the suspicion of heresy. This first form of 
the Inquisition was the plan of Innocent III., and enact- 
ed as law by the fourth Lateral) council, 1215. An im- 
portant change was made under Gregory IX., by the 
Council of Toulouse, in 1229, whereby the task was taken 
out of the hands of the bishops, by the appointment of 
Dominican monks to be permanent inquisitors. 

21. The Holy Scriptures were now forbidden to the 
laity. In the ancient church their use was free to all, 
and to part with them was held by Christians as almost 
equivalent to denying their Savior. But in the lapse of 
ages, Catholic practice had departed so far from gospel 
precept, that it was deemed expedient to withhold from 



128 

the people the means of comparing them. That step was 
first taken by the Greek catholic church in controversy 
with the Paulicians, in the ninth century. In the west, 
it was ordered by Innocent III., in 1199, and by the 
council of Toulouse in 1*229. 

22. It was in that belt of country consisting of north- 
ern Italy, southern France, and the north of Spain that 
the modern languages of continental Europe were first 
trained to the service of literature. That early literature 
consisted chiefly of songs, called lays, and sung to the 
accompaniment of the harp ; and those who composed 
them were Troubadours. The south of France was its 
centre and its head quarters were the courts of the 
counts of Provence and of Toulouse. The dialects 
throughout that belt of country were intimately related. 
From as early as the beginning of the eleventh century 
the Troubadour literature had been unfolding towards 
its proper maturity. The twelfth century was its meri- 
dian ; and it was apparently about to issue in something 
greater, when it was abruptly terminated by the crusade 
against the Albigenses. A modification of it was patron- 
ized, until a later date, at the court of Arragon, and by 
some of the Kings of Castile, and some of the princes in 
northern Italy. 

23. The forms of that style of popular song were 
transferred to the Latin, and used in the service of reli- 
gion. Specimens of rhymed Latin verse can be adduced 
from earlier time; but the true history of rhymed Latin 
hymns begins with the eleventh century, and the best of 
such productions belong to the twelfth and thirteenth. 

The latest lays of the Troubadours fell upon the 
youthful ear of Dante, who deeply imbued with their 
lyrical spirit, and versed in the Latin hymnology and 
philosophy of the schoolmen, concentrated the best liter- 
ary fruits of all in his great poem the Dicina Commedia, 
and therein the history of modern literature began. 
Dante was in his prime when the papal court was removed 
to Avignon. 

VIII. 1305-1418. 

From the middle of the eleventh century to the 
beginning of the fourteenth was the period of mediaeval 



129 

growth, purely and characteristically mediaeval. The 
fourteenth begins to present some features of the modern 
world. From the removal of the seat of the papacy to 
Aviamon, a new era in the history of the church extends 
until the close of the council of Constance, that is, until 
1418. The period thus hounded has also some peculiar 
features of its own. Of these some of the more remark- 
able are, the declining and latterly divided state of the 
papacy; secondly, the increase of dissent; thirdly, the 
decline of dialectic scholasticism, and increase of mysti- 
cism ; fourthly, the increasing power of national hierarchy- 
over the papal ; fifthly, the revival of classical learning 
and taste, and sixthly, the rise of modern literature in 
the Italian, Spanish and English languages. 

1. By means of reducing the German empire, the 
popes had done much to liberate the cities of northern 
Italy, and to build up the growing monarchy of France. 
At the beginning of the 14th century, France had no 
well matched rival, among the monarchies of the conti- 
nent, whom the popes could array against it. At Avig- 
non they were in no condition to assert their supremacy 
< ver it. In some of the measures of King Philip, as in 
the suppression of the Knights Templars, Clement V. was 
constrained reluctantly to concur. Seven Popes reigned 
successively in Avignon, before the schism, that is, 
between 1305 and "l378, Clement V., John XXII., 
Benedict XII., Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., 
and Gregory XL 

In those circumstances, the conflict which arose 
between the Popes and the Emperor Louis of Bavaria 
was really more to the interest of the French monarchy 
than to that of the papacy. The people of Germany now 
sustained their emperor, and Charles IV., elected through 
papal means, was constrained to take refuge in France. 
The interdict was laid upon Germany, but took little 
effect. When Louis died in 1347, Charles had to regard 
his former election invalid, and submit to be elected a 
second time. 

In 1347 another of those risings took place in Rome 
which have at several times aimed at restoring the 
glories of the ancient republic. Nicholas de Rienzi, by 



130 

his eloquence and enthusiasm, made himself tribune of 
the people, and actually governed the city for a few 
years. He was assassinated in 1354, and the whole fabric 
he had erected dissolved. Cardinal ^Egidius Albornoz 
reconquered the states of the church, and brought them 
back to papal obedience. But the existence of an anti- 
papal party in the papal dominions was thereby declared 
with even more boldness than in the days of Arnold of 
Brescia. 

Urban V., in 1367, attempted to remove his residence 
back to Rome. Various causes were now making that 
step desirable. England had recovered strength under 
the vigorous rule of Edward III., and declined payment 
of the required submission to the Pope, and of the tribute 
imposed by Innocent III. And the Pope's position in 
relation to France went to justify with the English public 
the acts of the party which questioned his right to inter- 
fere in their national affairs. And that party contained 
another advocating also an ecclesiastical reform. After 
thirty-three years, in which the tribute had not been 
paid, Urban Y., in 1365, made a demand upon the King 
for it with all the arrears. Edward referred the question 
to his parliament, which denied the validity of the papal 
claim. It had been imposed without the consent of 
Parliament; and was therefore unlawful. That action 
was defended by a learned ecclesiastic John of Wy cliff. 
The victories of Edward III., and of his son the Prince 
of Wales, had reduced the French monarchy and stripped 
it of nearly half its dominions, and of more than half its 
power. For a time England w T as the strongest power in 
western Europe. The Pope had purchased Avignon; 
but the condition of his estates in Italy seemed to demaud 
his presence there. Urban V. removed thither in 1367, 
but soon returned to Avignon, and remained there until 
his death. During his pontificate another effort was 
made, in compact with the eastern emperor, John Palaa- 
ologus, to connect the Greek with the Latin church, 
which was rejected by the Greeks. 

Urban V. died in 1370, and was succeeded on the 
papal throne by Gregory XL Disorder in the states of 
the church continued to increase. Gregory became 



131 

fully convinced that at all hazards lie ought to return to 
Rome; which lie did in 1377, but had to submit to open 

negotiations with his enemies. Peace was scarcely 
effected at his death, which occurred in 1378. 

The cardinals were divided in opinion on the subject 
of returning from France. Urban VI. was elected Pope 
on the 9th of April, 1378 by 16 cardinals, and took up 
his residence at Rome. But his intolerable temper and 
bearing soon alienated those who had been his friends. 
When they resisted him, he created 26 new cardinals to 
outvote them. Whereupon all but one of those who 
elected him throwing themselves into the interest of the 
French party, and withdrawing to Fondi, in the Kingdom 
of Naples, elected Robert of Geneva, on the 21st of Septem- 
ber that same year. The new Pope, as Clement VII., 
resided at Avignon, and was recognized by France, 
Spain, Scotland, Sicily and Cyprus. To Urban VI. 
adhered Italy, England, Bohemia and Hungary. In this 
case not only the papacy was divided, but also the Latin 
church. Each of the two Popes held his ground in the 
hope of suppressing the other. The schism gave occa- 
sion to great increase of corruption, and disgraceful 
exhibition of animosity between the parties; and both 
maintained their respective papal lines by subsequent 
elections. At Avignon Clement VII. was, in 1394. fol- 
lowed by Benedict XIII. , and at Rome, in 1389 Boniface 
IX, succeeded UrbanVI. and reigned until 1406. Greg- 
ory XII. was then elected and continued in office until 
deposed by the council of Constance, 1415. 

These papal disputes, in which the parties were always 
under anathema of each other, were felt, in many quar- 
ters, to be a scandal, and demands for the adoption of 
some measures of reform became numerous and impor- 
tunate. In that movement the university of Paris took 
the lead. But in England and Bohemia there were 
parties more radical still, who talked of rejecting the 
papal yoke altogether. Both Benedict XIII. and Greg- 
ory XII., on their election, promised to take the steps 
necessary to bring the schism to an end; but both 
declined to abide by the engagement. In 1408, their 
respective councils of cardinals abandoned both Popes 



132 

and appealing to Christ, a general council and a future 
pope, assembled at Leghorn. Thence, with advice of 
the Universities, they issued a call for a general council 
to meet at Pisa in 1409. In that couneiT there were 24 
cardinals of both papal connections, 200 bishops, 300 
abbots, the Universities were represented by 120 Masters 
in Theology, and 300 graduates of civil and canon law, 
and the state, on both papal interests, by the envoys of 
France and England. The council took the ground 
defended by Gerson, chancellor of the University of 
Paris, that by its constitution under Christ, the church 
was independent of the Pope, and acting thereupon, after 
a regular form of trial, deposed both the rival Popes for 
violation of their solemn obligation, and elected a new 
candidate, Alexander V., to be sole Pope. But after the 
adjournment of the council, Gregory and Benedict both 
denying its validity adhered to their claims, and Alexan- 
der could not withdraw from his, without betraying the 
cause of the council. And so, from June 26, 1409, there 
were three Popes, all regularly elected, according to one 
or other of the methods which had at different periods 
been accepted as valid in the catholic church. 

Alexander V. died May 3, 1410, and John XXIII. 
was elected in his stead by 26 cardinals at Bologna, with- 
in the same month. Thus the Pope of Avignon, though 
then residing in Spain, the Pope of Rome, and the Pope 
of Bologna, maintained their courts, in the bitterest hos- 
tility to each other, for seven years. 

Constrained by the Emperor Sigismond, the Pope of 
Bologna, John XXIII. , consented to convoke a council 
on the north side of the Alps for the purpose of settling 
this difficulty and of meeting generally the urgent 
demand for ecclesiastical reform, w T hich came from all 
parts of Latin Christendom. That council met at Con- 
stance on the 5th of November, 1414. Not much was 
effected for reform, but the papal schism was brought to 
an end. All three Popes were deposed, and another 
was elected, who took the name of Martin V. The 
election took place on the 11th of November, 1417, 
Gregory's resignation had been secured as early as 1415, 
John, who insisted upon retaining the portion of 



133 

papal dominion which adhered to him, was brought to 
trial for positive crimes, thrown into prison and deposed. 
Benedict, in exile, was inaccessible, and although deposed 
by act of the council, held his ground tenaciously; and 
when he died in 1424, two Cardinals set up a successor 
to him, as Clement VIII. The new antipope resigned in 
1429, and thereby the great papal schism was brought to 
an end. 

During that period of division, the papal list follows 
the Roman line, until 1409. It then passes to the Pope 
set up by the council of Pisa and his successor, until the 
deposition uf John XXIII. May 29, 1415. From that 
date there is no Pope recognized as true until the election 
of Martin Y. Xovember 11, 1417. 

The council of Constance, like that of Pisa, was con- 
stituted on the principle that a council of bishops, repre- 
senting the church in general, is independent of the 
Pope, and a superior authority. The members adopted 
the rule, in the beginning, that they should vote by 
nations, whereby a check was applied to the numerical 
majority of the Italian prelates. The nations thus repre- 
sented were the German, the Italian, the French, the 
English, and the Spanish; the cardinals constituted a 
section by themselves. 

Inasmuch as John XXIII. was deposed by that coun- 
cil, and Martin V. set up by it, and accepted as a true 
Pope by all the Latin church, it cannot be denied that 
practically the council was admitted to be lawfully com- 
petent to do what it had done, and therefore was a higher 
power than the Pope; a court before which Popes could 
be legally tried. And if that is true of the council of 
Constance, it must be true of any council so consti- 
tuted. All later popes are in the line of succession from 
Martin V. 

2. Great corruption invaded the papal court at Avig- 
non. The guilt of simony was common. Everything 
was venal. And the schism instead of contracting the 
extravagance, doubled it. Popes turned the revenues of 
the church to the account of their own ambition. Fees 
were exacted of prelates upon their consecration ; from 
many benefices the income of a year, called Annates, 



134 

was exacted by the Pope before a new incumbent could 
receive investiture ; and taxes were levied upon the pub- 
lic generally, under various pretenses. Money was also 
raised by sale of indulgences. Papal infallibility had 
already been advocated by a numerous party, but was 
strongly opposed by the better informed, and by the 
church in general. 

3. Episcopal authority was fortified by the division of 
the papal. Different countries chose their own papal 
allegiance. Councils became of greater importance, and 
freedom of opinion obtained a certain latitude. Criticism 
of at least one Pope was always safe. Men of reading 
could not fail to compare the records of earlier Christi- 
anity, with what was taking place around them. The 
universities were almost unanimous in their demand for 
reform, and the public generally looked for it. But the 
heads of the hierarchy, to whom the application was 
made, regarded it with aversion. 

4. Meanwhile dissenting sects continued to increase. 
And a greater number without dissenting from the doc- 
trines of the church were dissatisfied with the conduct of 
her clergy. JSTo one fact appears more frequently in the lit- 
erature of the 14th century than this. It is embodied 
in the most terrific passages of Dante, it is exposed in 
the letters of Petrarch, and the tales of Boccacio, it is 
declared in various forms in Chaucer, and in the poem 
called the visions of Piers Plowman. But who were to 
be the reformers ? The strength of the mediaeval Puri- 
tans, the Cathari, was broken; the Aibigenses were 
almost extinguished. Nor is it certain that they, if suc- 
cessful, would have made the reformation which was 
needed. The seat of dissent was removed further north, 
to the Netherlands, to Bohemia, and especially to Eng- 
land, where it found a leader in John Wycliff, professor 
of theology in the university of Oxford. 

It was in 1360, when he was a fellow of Merton Col- 
lege, Oxford, that Wycliff first came forward as the 
champion of the university in dispute with the mendicant 
monks. In 1366 he defended the King and Parliament 
in rejecting the papal demand of tribute. He was made 
professor of theology in 1372, and rector of Lutterworth 






135 

in 1375. He was accused" of heresy in 1376. Gregory 
XI. instituted an inquiry against him. Be was protected 
by a strong part) - among the nobility, and by the Duke 
of of Lancaster, one of the sons of Edward III. The 
Succeeding papal schism furnished an occasion of which 
he availed himself to publish scripture truth among his 
countrymen. His pupils, whom lie sent on that work, 
he furnished with the true evangelical armor in his 
translation of the Scriptures. In 1381 he was constrained 
to leave Oxford. He retired to his parish of Lutterworth 
and continued his work of translating the Bible, and 
otherwise carrying forward the reformation of the church, 
until his death in 1384. 

The followers of Wyclitf, generally called Lollards, 
were protected, or were not harassed during the reign of 
Richard II. But in 1399 Richard was constrained to 
resign by Henry of Lancaster, who to secure the throne 
he had usurped, threw himself into the interest of the 
Papalists. Parliament in 1401 passed a law that persons 
convicted of heresy should be burned to death ; and 
executions forthwith began. Still within the reign of 
Henry IV., the papacy was in a divided and compara- 
tively feeble condition. It recovered in the time of 
Henry V. who came to the throne in 1413. Then was 
the cause of reformation persecuted with more persistent 
cruelty. WyclifTs doctrines were condemned at Con- 
stance, and ten years later, 1428, his bones were taken 
out of the grave and burned, and their ashes cast into a 
neighboring brook. But the doctrines of Wyclitf were 
never extinguished in England. They also crossed the 
sea and met with acceptance in Bohemia. The wife of 
Richard II., who was a sister of Wenceslaus, king of 
Bohemia, partook of the spirit of the reformer. Her life 
as Queen of England was such as to sanction the most 
important of Wyclitf : s labors. The communication thus 
established between England and Bohemia greatly pro- 
moted the interests of reformation in both countries. 

Among the earliest reformers in Bohemia were Con- 
rad of Waldhausen, pestor in Prague, and Milicz of 
Kremsier. Further advance was made by Matthias of 
Janow, preacher in the cathedral church of Prague (d. 



136 

1394.) John Hus, teacher of theology at Prague followed 
their example by taking his own lessons of divine truth 
from the Bible. He soon, together with his friend 
Jerome of Prague, stood at the head of an almost national 
movement of reform, which was too strong to allow per- 
secution to seriously injure them at Prague. When the 
council met at Constance, they were summoned to appear 
before it. Hus went under a letter of safe conduct from 
the Emperor Sigismond. Notwithstanding, he was con- 
demned by the council and burned at the stake, July 6, 
1415. Jerome suffered the same fate on the 30th of May 
following. 

5. During the 14th century a change was introduced 
into the philosophy of scholasticism by William Occam, 
professor of theology at Paris (d 1347). That change 
consisted in a new style of nominalism, according to 
which the common understanding does not apprehend 
truth, but only phenomena, that is, not universal principle, 
but particular things, including forms of expression in 
language. The truths of doctrine could not be demon- 
strated philosophically. They were based on the words 
of Revelation, which the Holy Spirit continues to make 
to the church. The human mind knows only the particu- 
lar; to general ideas there is no corresponding objective 
reality ; and divine truth was just the truths of differ-ent 
revelation 3. But consistently with the growing system of 
Romish dogma, Occam taught that revelations had been 
made to the great doctors of the church as well as to 
the apostles. His views, after a bitter controversy, 
prevailed in Paris ; but were rejected at the university of 
Prague. In the violent debates, carried on through the 
14th century between Realists and Occamists, the greater 
part of the warfare was waged within the domain of 
philosophical notions preliminary to theology. 

Other eminent scholastics of the same period were 
Durand, Bishop of Meanx, (d. 1333) Thomas Bradwar- 
dine, (d. 1346) Arch-bishop of Canterbury ; Peter A'Ailly 
(1425), John Charlier de Gerson of the university of 
Paris, (1375-1425), Nicholas de Clemangis, (1440). The 
writings of Gerson and some of his contemporaries give 
evidence that scholasticism had lost its power to satisfy 
the demands of the human mind. 



137 

Biblical learning among Christian scholars of the west, 
had for centuries been almost confined to the Latin ver- 
sion used in the church. A professorship of Oriental 
languages was established by Clement V.. 1311, but only 
for the instruction of missionaries. Nicholas de Lyra, 
prof, of theology in Paris, (d. 1340) was the only man of 
his time distinguished by a knowledge of Hebrew. Greek 
scholarship was not quite so rare. 

6. It was in the 14th century that the Mystics carried 
their doctrines to the greatest extreme, arid to a positive 
antagonism to the teaching of the later Scholastics. A 
certain class of them, who were called the Friends of 
God, became of great weight among the reforming 
agencies of the church, especially in southwesrern Ger- 
many. God they believed to be the only reality ; all 
finite things were only seeming. This view, if developed 
philosophically, might have amounted to nothing more 
than a commonplace pantheism ; but they thought only 
of nearness to a real and everywhere present God. The 
soul of man must separate itself from the finite, as Christ 
did, that it may become, like him, a son of God. This 
is to be done by contemplation upon God, and renuncia- 
tion of the world. They also lamented the corruptions 
of the church, and advocated a reform, and especially 
longed for a spiritual revival, which they also did no 
little to promote. Henry Eckart of Strasburg, who lived 
in the first quarter of the 14th cent., was the earliest to 
advocate this doctrine. It was zealously accepted by 
Nicholas of Basil, from 1330, who believed that by 
ascetic exercises he had, through visions and revelations, 
attained to a complete renunciation of the world and of 
his own will, and to an intimate communion with God. 
Several others adopted more or less of the same views, 
among whom John Tauler, a Dominican Monk, became 
eminently distinguished, (d. 1361.) To the same reli- 
gious connection belonged Henry Suso of Ulm, Ruys- 
broek of Brussels (d. 1381.), thought by some to be the 
author of the Theologia Germania. The succession con- 
tinued through the fifteenth century, including also such 
men as Dr. Gerson, Thomas a Kempis, and several who 
proceeded from the school of Gerard at Deventer, and 



188 

whose preaching and writings were eagerly sought after, 
greatly'to the increase of practical pietj, until, as a religious 
revival, their work merged in the greater one of the 
Reformation. 

The mystics were not limited to a particular order of 
clergy, or class of society; they were of all classes. 
They did not escape the persecution which was levelled 
at heretics. Not a few suffered death. Nicolas of Basil 
was burned in 1382. 

The theological school of Gerard Groot, at Deventer 
was designed to promote true spiritual attainments in 
uniting sound knowledge to genuine piety. He died in 
1384. Two years afterwards, one of his disciples founded 
near Zwoll, a chapter of regular canons with a similar 
purpose. 

The rationalizing scholastics, as distinguished from 
the mystics were subtle dialecticians, in some cases elo- 
quent preachers, and in more they were laborious writ- 
ers, but dealt most generally with the superficies and 
forms of thought, mapping, dividing and subdividing the 
surface of that concrete, which consisted of philosophy 
and theology and practical morals and religion as one 
science. The mystics penetrated deeper into the human 
heart, its feelings, its hopes, the basis of its faith, and its 
relations with the unseen world. In some cases the 
style of their thinking may be characterized as viaionary ; 
but with all their defects, the most profoundly exercised 
Christian will enjoy their writings most, finding in them 
much, which though dialectics could never expound, he 
knows to be true. The writings of Tauler were much 
esteemed by Luther, and the Theotogia Germanica, and 
the De imitatione Christi, though burdened with heavy 
faults, have been cherished by the pious among the edu- 
cated, ever since the days of their publication. 

7. Another feature which distinguishes this from all 
other periods of history, is the revival of ancient classi- 
cal literature and taste. In the history of the church, 
literary art is a matter of very great moment. For it is 
the medium of addressing instruction to the common 
mind. Scholasticism laid no claim to attractive composi- 
tion. It spoke the language of students, and addressed 






139 

students alone. It knew nothing of a reading populace, 
but only theologians. Immediately it did little or noth- 
ing for improving the people. Another style of literary 
men was needed to execute that work. And such a class 
had arisen, men who employed the popular dialects in 
their productions, and who for enlisting of public atten- 
tion and interest relied upon those principles which long 
ages of classical experience had proved the best. Their 
models, and guides to those principles were the best 
authors of classical antiquity. In that movement the 
literature of modern Europe began. Dante was the 
transition ; his Divina Commedia is the fruit of the Mid- 
dle ages as to its substance and form ; but his poetic 
examplar was Virgil. But the true reviver of classical 
taste in literature' was Petrarch. (1304-1374.) In that 
pursuit he was early joined by his friend and pupil Boc- 
cacio. Zealously did they both labor in searching out 
works of ancient classical authors and in having them 
copied and republished, as well as in recommending the 
study of them to others. 

Study of classical Latin naturally led also to the 
Greek. And Greek literary men fleeing before the 
advance of Turkish conquest, and finding refuge in Italy, 
furnished those progressive scholars with Greek teachers. 
The work thus begun was taken up by many others, 
their number increasing as the interest and richness of 
the rediscovered mine became better known. 

Under the force of classical example, some of the 
modern languages, first of all the Italian, and then the 
English, began to assume the dignity of letters. And 
popular treatment of interesting topics took a wider range. 
The author of Piers Plowman, Mandeville, Chaucer, 
Wycliff, Gower and Barbour, in Great Britain, were the 
contemporaries of Petrarch and Boccacio, in Italy. 
And Wycliff, Chaucer, and the author of Piers Plowman 
were all advocates of ecclesiastical reform. English lite- 
rature opened in the most important and successful 
effort for reformation made in the 14th century. 

In Germany, the Minnesingers of the 13th century 
had given way to a class of poets called Master-singers, 
who organized themselves into societies for the purpose 



140 

of promoting their art. But their rules were unproduc- 
tive of any great work capable of standing the test of 
time. 

Neither did French literature advance as might have 
been expected. In the south, the Troubadours suffered 
with the Albigenses. In the north the Trouvere litera- 
ture existed chiefly among the Normans. And those 
who produced it, after the pacification of England, made 
that country their principal residence. The best works 
of the Truveres, though in the language of northern 
France, were written in England. Civil war and foreign 
invasion also stood in the way of any literary culture, 
which may have been incipient among the people. 

Italy and England were, in respect to vernacular lite- 
rature, greatly in advance of all other nations. The Eng- 
lish took the bent of religious reform ; the Italian that 
of art* 

8. The eastern empire was now contracted to a small 
space, and that continually threatened by the now power 
of the O toman Turks. Many earnest attempts were 
made by the Greek Emperors to re-unite the eastern and 
western churches, with the view of securing aid from the 
nations of the west. J3ut every such plan was defeated 
by the unbending tenacity with which both parties held to 
their doctrines and practices, and rejected those of the 
other. Such was that of Andronicus III. Palaeologus, 
in 1333; aud of John Y. Palseologus, who in 1355, went the 
length of swearing allegiance to the Pope; but without 
inducing his Greek subjects to follow his example. Con- 
troversy, and consequent alienation between the two 
churches, was rather increased by agitating the question 
of union. 

In 1367 Armenia was conquered by the Mamelukes. 
Such fate also befel the Coptic Christians in Egypt. 
And the churches in both countries were subjected to a 
cruel oppression. 

On the other hand, in the north, there was, gradually 
emancipating itself from foreign domination, a power 
destined in the course of ages to become the successful 
champion of the Greek church to the ends of the earth. 
But at that time, Russia was still struggling for existence 
in war with the Mongul. 



141 

IX. 1418—1517. 

The various reform movements which took their rise, 
or emerged into notice in the 14th century, continued 
to make progress in the period which opened in the last 
weeks of the council of Constance, and closed with the 
publication of Luther's Theses, in 1517. Of that section 
of history in Europe one of the most important features 
is the progress of the spirit of reform among the com- 
mon people and the lower clergy, and the increase of 
Scriptural knowledge and general intelligence with which 
it was conducted. A second was the restored unity of 
the Papacy, and accelerated moral degeneracy of the 
Popes. A third was the question of the authority of 
councils over the Papacy and the church. A fourth, the 
continued decline, and final submersion of scholasticism, 
and the rapid growth of classical learning and popular 
literature. A fifth, the invention of printing. A sixth 
the maturity of Italian art. And a seventh must be 
added consisting of several remarkable events, which 
combined to change in an important degree the habits of 
industry and the channels of enterprise. 

1. On the 11th of Xovernber 1417, the council of 
Constance elected Otto Colonna Pope^under the name 
of Martin V. He was acknowledged by all the nations, 
the first sole Pope in forty years. The council imme- 
diately lost its importance ; and after having appointed 
a succession of general councils to keep supervision over 
the interests of the church, it terminated its own ses- 
sions, on the 22nd of April 1418. 

The first in that succession of councils was appointed 
to meet at Pavia, in 1423. By the Pope it was diverted 
to Sienna, and then dissolved, before it had transacted 
any business. The next, appointed to meet seven years 
later, assembled at Basil, Dec. 14, 1431. 

Martin Y. died in February of that year, and was 
succeeded by Eugenius IV., elected by the Cardinals. 

The council of Basil entered earnestly into the attempt 
to reform the church. In its first years the Pope was 
constrained to yield on all points. Some serious abuses 
were condemned and abolished, Papal prerogatives and 
revenue were seriouslv threatened. Eugenius, in order 



142 

to exercise the more control over its proceedings, issued 
a bull, ordering the council to remove to Ferrara. Some 
bishops complied, but the greater number remained at 
Basil. Unfortunately, they passed sentence of deposi- 
tion upon Eugenius, and elected Amadeus VIII. of Savoy 
in his stead, as Felix V. This introduction of a new 
schism, so soon after the church had, with much trouble, 
composed the disorders belonging to the former,prejudiced 
the cause of the council. Some of the members, in dis- 
satisfaction, returned home, and after the month of May 
1443, the council gradually fell apart. In 1448 it removed 
to Lausanne, and dissolved next year. Felix V. had 
already resigned. 

During the early days of that council, while it was 
yet a real power, occasion was taken to revive the ancient 
liberties of the Gallican Church, and to extend and define 
them. France was then in one of her lowest periods of 
adversity, and the English were still in possession of 
Paris, when Charles VII. , on the 7th of July 1437 exe- 
cuted the Pragmatic sanction of Bourges, by which he 
accepted the decisions of the council of Basil. They 
continued to be law in France until December, 1515, 
when Franis I. sacrificed them to his concordat with the 
Pope. 

Eugenius IV. persistently labored to undo the reform- 
ing acts of the council, and had some reason to be grati- 
fied with the degree of his success. Where he could not 
prevent their acceptance, he succeeded in embarrassing 
their operation, and on his death bed received, through 
her ambassadors the returning allegiance of Germany. 

Meanwhile, at the Pope's council in Ferrara, and later 
in Florence, the principal event was another show of 
union with the Greek church; of all such the most deceitful 
and humiliating to those concerned. The emperor John 
VII. Palseologus, reduced to the last extremity by aggres- 
sion of the Turks, and the Pope striving to counteract the 
council of Basil, agreed in earnestly desiring the union ; 
the former, in hope that western arms might thereby be 
brought to the aid of his own in repelling the Moham- 
medan ; and the latter, believing that the weight of such 
a vast addition to his jurisdiction would enable him to 



143 

overmatch bis opponents, if not to overwhelm them by 
the torrent of a crusade. In Papal ships, and partly 
with Papal money, the impoverished emperor left Con- 
stantinople accompanied by the Patriarch and a number 
of Greek prelates. They were received with pomp and 
adulation at Venice, and afterwards at Ferrara. But the 
meetings of the council were thinly attended and busi- 
ness was delayed. After about two years, and afcer the 
removal to Florence, the act of union was passed. It 
was one, in which the necessities of the Greeks con- 
strained them to yield enough to render the whole una- 
vailing. They returned home to encounter a storm of 
disapproval. Their action was utterly rejected. A 
respectable minority of them, with Mark bishop of 
Ephesus at their head, had dissented from every thing at 
variance with Greek orthodoxy. They were now the 
national heroes. Main- of the' majority regretted the 
part they had taken in the affair, and expressed their 
repentance in terms of profound contrition. The 
emperor, in attempting to save his country, had lost its 
confidence and support, and was denounced as a traitor 
to its most sacred cause. The pompous!} 7 constructed 
union proved a nullity. As a constrained attempt at 
compromise, its statements of doctrine are of little value, 
as touching the real faith of the Greek church. 

Upon the death of Eugeuius IV., Feb. 7, 1444. Nico- 
las V. succeeded, without any reference to the antipope. 
Nicolas pursued the policy of his predecessors, in respect 
to the authority of his office, but was a man of superior 
liberality in other respects, and an eminent patron of 
literature and learning. Upon the fall of Constantino- 
ple, he issued a summons for a Crusade. But the time 
for such enterprises had passed. None responded to the 
call. But the Papal treasury gained by collections of 
money for the purpose. 

Calixtus III., who succeeded Nicolas, (1455-1468) 
adapted the same device for raising money, but created 
thereby much dissatisfaction, especially in Germany, and 
indirectly strengthened the hands of the reforming party. 

^Eneas Sylvius, a former adherant of the council of 
Basil was elected Pope, under the name of Pius II.. and 



144 

turned out as high toned a defender of Papal prerogative 
as any of his predecessors. He also tried to organize a 
crusade; but no popular interest could be aroused in the 
cause. His successor, Paul II. in a pontificate of seven 
years, succeeded in making himself generally hated with- 
out accomplishing anything of importance. 

The succeeding popes of this period were men of 
such character that it is amazing how they ever obtained 
election to any ecclesiastical office whatever. Sixtus IV., 
(1471-1484), although a man of public spirit, who 
enlarged the Papal library, and executed several improve- 
ments in the city of Rome, spent most of his time in 
measures to enrich himself and his kindred, and in petty 
Italian wars. Those who praise him boast that "no Prince 
ever offered him an injury, or indignity which he did not 
return with due revenge." Of Innocent VIII. , (1484- 
1492), the principal facts recorded are his quarrels with 
Ferdinand of Aragon and Naples, and his rapacity in 
providing for his own illegitimate children. 

Alexander VI. (1492-1503) may be said to have 
sounded the lowest depths of profligacy. He and his 
children have rendered their family name, Borgia, noto- 
rious in the annals of crime. He died from taking by 
mistake the poison, which he or his son Caesar had pre- 
pared for others. Pius III. reigned onl}' a few days. 
Julius II. (1503-1513) was more of a soldier than a 
minister of religion. As a man, profane and blasphemous, 
as a prince, taking delight in war, he sacrificed thousands 
to his ambition, " and by his other enormities rendered 
his name odious to posterity." Within his pontificate, a 
general council was summoned at Pisa, by the Emperor 
and the Kingof France. It met in September, 1511,forthe 
purpose of once more attempting some reform of the 
generally admitted abuses in the church. Julius, to 
counteract it, convoked a Lateran council to meet in 
April of the next year. The council of Pisa effected 
nothing towards the end for which it was called ; and the 
emperor Maximilian gave in his adherence to Julius and 
the Lateran council, which was not intended to reform 
anything. Julius died amid plans for a league to carry 
a ruinous war into France. In 1513, Leo X. of the ill us- 






145 

trious de Medici of Florence, succeeded Julius, and 
restored at least a decent decorum to the papal court. 
Leo X., had little claim to the character of a christian, but 
he was refined in his tastes, elegant in his pleasures, and 
an eminent patron of the tine arts. His first few years 
restored, to all appearance the full harmony of the 
Papacy with the secular powers. Accordingly he 
could go on to gratify his taste for the grand and beauti- 
ful in art. The new cathedral of St. Peter's was his 
favorite enterprise ; and money was to be collected for 
its completion by all available devices. 

2. During the whole of this period, the opposing cur- 
rents of events continued to advance with increasing 
rapidity : on one side, the practice of old abuses, and 
reckless development of their consequences; on the 
other the effort to obtain some correction of them, though 
often defeated, was becoming better sustained by force 
and intelligence. 

Restoration of papal unity brought with it the idea 
of restoring every thing to the standared of the thir- 
teenth century. Practices and dogmas to which the one 
party objected, were set forth by the other in a bolder, 
and sometimes most reprehensible manner. Transub- 
stantiation was urged in its grossest extreme; adoration 
of the Virgin Mary received additions, belief in her 
immaculate conception continued to gain ground; the 
rosary systematized the vain repetition of prayer addressed 
to her, and her house removed from Nazareth to Italy 
became the holy shrine of Loretto. Indulgences had been 
a saleable commodity for ages, but the trffiac in them was 
now pushed to an unprecedented extent, especially by 
Dominican monks. 

The principle upon which indulgences were justified 
was invented by the schoolmen out of pre-existing Pom- 
ish practices, the granting of absolution by priests, belief 
in purgatory, and the necessity of good works in order 
to salvation, the merits of saints, and the Papal power of 
the keys. The doctrines rationally accounting for 
these, and for practices springing out of them, were 
elaborated chiefly by Albertus Magnus, and Alexander 
Hales, and, most of all, by Thomas Aquinas, whose doc- 
trine was retained unaltered by the council of Trent. 



146 

The merits of Christ atone for original sin, and 
secure ultimately eternal happiness for all true Catholics. 
But the individual believer must account for his own 
actual sins by good works, or penances. If deficient in 
these latter, at the time of his death, he must suffer the 
adequate amount in Purgatory. When by that propor- 
tion of suffering his soul has been purified, it ascends, in 
regular order, to Paradise. But it may take thousands 
of years to reach that consummation. Most men come 
greatly short of the necessary amount of merit, and have 
to surfer long, The saints happily have accumulated 
more than enough for their own use. The surplus 
is laid up in store; and from it can be drawn what is 
needed for the lack of imperfect souls. And the Pope, 
by his power as vicar of Christ, can, for sufficient rea- 
sons, grant to the faithful, whether in this life or in Pur- 
gatory, indulgences out of that superabundance of 
the merits of Christ and of the saints. Where the Pope is 
himself present, that favor can be extended through not 
his properly commissioned agents, and by means of a 
written paper properly signed and sealed. " Those who 
have obtained such indulgences are released from so 
much of the temporal punishment due for their actual 
sins to the divine justice, as is equivalent to the indul- 
gence granted and obtained." Temporal punishment 
means punishment in this life, or in Purgatory. 

Such were the documents now multiplied enormously 
and offered for sale, carried into various countries and 
recommended to purchasers, in some places quietly, in 
others loudly and publicly, as peddlers vend their wares. 
And the plea for such activity in the trafic was, in some 
quarters put forth openly, to raise money to complete 
the church of St. Peter's. Such was the style in which 
things were conducted by the leaders of one party, 
which may be called the conservatist of that time. 

With such facilities for obtaining pardon of sin, or 
indulgence in it, with such example as that produced 
among the clergy by celibacy enforced and concubinage 
freely connived at, what was to be expected of practical 
morals among the laity? No period in the history of 
Christendom bears a deeper brand of moral license than 



147 

the fifteenth century, and the early part of the six- 
teenth. 

Circulation of the scriptures among the people in a 
language they could understand was prohibited, and 
actually prevented as far as the hierarchy could carry 
their purpose into effect. Church service was in Latin, 
of which the people did not now understand one sent- 
ence. Singing in Church had long ago been taken out 
of the mouths of the congregations and committed to 
choirs of priest* ; and what they sang, or chanted was 
also in a dead language. 

Preaching as revived by the mendicant monks had 
not proved of the effect intended. It had not converted 
the dissenting sects, nor done much for general edifica- 
tion. The sermons of the monks were in the vernacular 
tongues; but most commonly consisted of legends of 
saints, commendations of indulgences, or of some super- 
stitious practice. 

To engage and occupy the increasing activity of intel- 
lect, various devices were employed, some of them the 
fruit of that activity itself. Such were the dramatic 
entertainments, called . Mysteries, Miracle Plays, and 
Moralites, exhibited in the churches, which commenced 
at a much earlier time, increased in number and import- 
ance in the 14th and loth centuries. 

In the latter part of this period scholasticism proper 
reached its termination. The most complete and copious 
treatise on Theology produced in the loth century was 
the Summa Theologica of Antonins, printed at Xuremburg 
in 1479, twenty years after the author's death. And the 
last of the scholastics whom History may be concerned 
to record, was Gabriel Biel of Tubingen, who died in 
1495. Still, the peculiar style of their disquisitions lin- 
gered Ions: in some branches of studv in the universi- 
ties; and only gradually gave way before the advance of 
a more discrete philosophy. 

3. On the other hand, the movement in the direction 
of reform was proceeding by various channels. The 
restoration of classical learning continued to advance. 
Upon the fall of Constantinople, many learned Greeks 
took refuge in the AVest, where they maintained them- 



148 

selves by teaching their native tongue. With the pro- 
gress of Greek scholarship, the philosophy of Plato was 
revived. The illustrous Cosmo de Medici founded a 
Platonic school at Florence. Help was thereby brought to 
the study of art, and a rival set up to scholasticism. By the 
end of the 15th century, Latin was once more written in 
classical purity, and the best Greek authors were familiar 
to the scholars of the west. It was inevitable that the 
original Greek text of the Scriptures should receive a 
large share of attention. In the beginning of the 16th 
century the Greek New Testament was one of the most 
saleable books. 

The arts of painting, sculpture and architecture had 
grown up with reviving literature. Gothic architecture, 
like the poetry of Dante, was a fruit of the Middle 
Ages, and reached its prime in the 14th century, but the 
revival of learning rekindled a taste for the Roman. In 
the 15th century, Italy saw a great many buildings of 
that style erected. And greatest of all, the new St. 
Peter's was slowly rising from its foundations. It had 
been commenced by Nicolas V., in 1450. But although 
carried forward by architects of the highest talent, and 
with great expenditure of money, was, in the time of 
Leo X. far from complete. It was not finished until one 
hundred years later (1614). At the opening of the 16th 
century., the excellence and renown of her arts absorbed 
the pride, and the best energies of Italy. In this respect, 
her example was followed in the Netherlands and some 
places in Germany. France and England were inter- 
rupted in their better progress by the wars with each 
other, and by the civil broils which long distracted them 
both. 

Within the same period the christian Spaniards suc- 
ceeded in finally expelling the Moors from Granada 
(1492). The Portuguese had driven them from their 
part of the Peninsula, at an earlier date, and extended 
their conquests to Africa. The mariner's compass had 
been introduced some time before. It was now employed 
by daring Portuguese sailors, in explorations of the 
Atlantic ocean, off the African coast, until by successive 



149 

attempts they ultimately rounded the Cape of Good 
Hope, and sailed to India, (1498); while Columbus, in the 
service of Spain, with a still bolder daring launched direct- 
ly across the ocean and reached America in 1492. A new 
route was thus opened to India, and a productive trade 
reopened, which for centuries had been obstructed by 
the conquests of the Turks ; and a new continent dis- 
covered. The commerce of the world was turned to the 
paths of the occean. The countries on the Atlantic coast 
rose in importance, while those on the Mediterranean 
declined : a change of the utmost importance in the 
great ecclesiastical controversy about to ensue. 

The difference of exposure between the mailclad 
knight and his peasantry on the battle field was almost 
annihilated by the discovery of gunpowder, and its 
application to war ; a change the moral effects of which 
are not easily computed. It became impossible to hold 
as serfs men in whose hands were the military fortunes 
of their nation, when increasing intelligence had suffi- 
ciently informed them of their importance. And when 
they also became enlightened by the gospel, their con- 
sciousness of power blended with Christian heroism. 

The new, or revived arts were, in the first instance, 
exercised in the service of the Romish church. The only 
exception was that of printing, which from the first, was 
an agent of progress, on whatever side of the controversy 
it wrought. Its earliest productions were executed before 
the middle of the 15th century. And in the next sixty 
or seventy years the book upon which its labors were 
chiefly employed was the Bible. It was the first book of 
any importance printed with moveabla metal types, by 
Faust and Guttenberg at Mayence between 1450 and 1455. 
Several editions of the Vulgate followed each other at no 
great intervals. And many translations made from the Lat- 
in into the modern languages were printed before the end 
of that century. Hebrew scholarship had also commenced 
its career among christians of the west, and two editions 
of the whole Hebrew Bible were printed within the same 
time, one at Soneino in 1488, and the other at Brescia in 
1494. And by the year 1517 the Complutensian Poly- 
glot was finished, and printed at Alcaia in Spain. 



150 

4. After all, the main stream of improvement, which 
carried all these agencies along with it, and made its own 
benign uses of them, was the increasing interest in 



'to 



evangelical religion. The influences set in activity by 
the mystic preachers, not so much from their theory of 
faith, as in that they preached Christ, operated in that 
direction within the bosom of the Catholic Church. 
Such, likewise, was the moderate mystic, or more 
properly, spiritual piety, tinged with monasticism, which 
perpetuated itself from the school of Gerard, through the 
Brethren of the common life, and the canons of Mount 
St. Agnes at Zwoll. But head and front of all was the 
great dissenting movement which commenced in Eng- 
land, was now most conspicuous in Bohemia and Mora- 
via, where in the face of persecution, the reformers 
organized themselves for defence, and under their brave 
and gifted leader, Ziska, held their ground against the 
Emperor, in successful war, for many years. Finally 
their enemies succeeded in dividing them by offering a 
compromise, which only a part of their number could 
accept. Those who submitted, called Caliztines, because 
the restoration of the cup in the Eucharist was one of 
the conditions of the compromise, finding that the con- 
ditions were not complied with, on the part of the Catho- 
lics, returned in considerable numbers and reunited with 
the uncompromising party, who were called Taborites, 
and formed with them the covenant of the Unitas Fra- 
trum. About 1470 they published a translation of the 
Bible in the Bohemian language; and sent commission- 
ers into various countries to inquire into the state of 
religion. About the beginning of the 16th century, they 
had still some two hundred congregations, by whom 
fraternal relations had been established with the Wal- 
denses. 

In Spain and Italy also voices were raised in advocacy 
of reformation ; But Papal authority was too near in any 
part of the latter country, and the inquisition most unre- 
lenting in the other. 

At the beginning of the 16th century monarchy was 
in the ascendant. England, France, Spain were at last 
completely consolidated— each one around its own regal 






151 

centre ; and the German empire was stronger than it had 
been since the downfall of the Hohenstaufen. 

The civil rulers no longer admitted that they were 
subordinate to the Pope in temporal things. But Leo 
X. did not press that claim. And the collision into which 
he was brought with some of them was not for supremacy, 
but for the safety of Italy. His see was restored to 
strength, not quite of the same kind it had wielded in 
the 13th century, but of a kind apparently more stable 
and peaceful. Maintaining, as lie did, manageable rela- 
tions with the great monarchs, and enjoying a perfect 
agreement with them on the subject of religion, why- 
should the murmurs of powerless dissenters be a cause of 
anxiety ? They in fact occasioned none to the gay and 
accomplished Pope. From the Vatican point of view, 
the prospect was a flattering one, in the early years of 
Leo X. But the expenses of the Papal court were great, 
and patronage of the arts, liberal, and the work upon 
St. Peter's involved an enormous additional outlay. To 
meet these demands recourse was had, among other 
devices, to an increased activity in the sale of indulgen- 
cies. The method of farming them out and peddling 
them over the country was pushed to a degree of reck- 
lessness, which was the more offensive as in the face of a 
greatly advanced popular intelligence. 

In the prosecution of that trafic, " Germany was 
divided among three commissioners. The Elector Albert 
of Mayenee, who was also archbishop of Magdeburg, 
assumed the chief management of commission for his 
own provinces. Among the venders of indulgences 
whom he appointed," John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, 
made himself imprudently conspicuous. The condition 
of repentance for the sins pardoned he ventured to omit. 
Such was the virtue of his indulgences, that they of them- 
selves effected pardon of the sins for which they were 
purchased. It is surprising to read of the success which 
followed him. But there were multitudes all over Ger- 
many, who were shocked by the scandalous practice. 

Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, and professor 
and preacher at Wittenberg in Electoral Saxony, who 
had already opposed himself to certain doctrinal errors 



152 

of the Romish church, was moved to condemn the whole 
system of indulgences, as having no authority from the 
Word of God. An arduous spiritual experience, and care- 
ful study of Scripture had already given him victory over 
many of the superstitions of his time. His duty was 
plain. He preached against indulgences, and warned 
his people about them, as an imposition upon their faith. 
Tetzel heard of it, and was furious against the heretic. 
Luther was a man not to be intimidated, or deterred from 
taking the most effective stand for the truth which he 
believed. On the evening of the 31st of October, the eve 
of the feast of All Saints, in the year 1517, a day on 
which all who should attend church and confess, should 
receive plenary indulgence, Luther went and affixed to 
the door of the great church of Wittenberg a list of 
ninety-live theses against indulgences, which he announced 
himself prepared to defend next day in the university 
against all opposers. That act was solely his own. He 
committed no person to responsibility for it but himself. 
Going forward in reliance upon divine truth, and fearless 
of danger in so doing, he took a step wmich however 
simple in itself, became, from the existing state of the 
church, and of the world, an era in general history, one 
of those great events by which we mark the progress of 
mankind. 

FOURTH PERIOD. 1517 TO 1870. 

When from A. D. 1517, we look into the future, it is 
is not merely a new stage in the old controversy which 
appears; but a new question has arisen, a new party has 
taken the field, and a new aim is held up before the 
Christian world. That new aim is to emancipate the 
Bible from the restraints of ecclesiasticism, to maintain 
its freedom, and its right to be regarded as the only rule 
of faith and practice. On that subject professing Christ- 
ians continue to differ. Men of the world, to some 
extent, take part with one side or the other, according to 
circumstances. And the whole of western Christendom 
is divided. 

The Reformation was not the work of a man, not the 
fruit of a single act of daring. It was one of the steps 



153 

of progress in the work of God, which had been going 
on in the heart of the people for three hundred years, 
slowly strengthening and unfolding itself, in the midst 
of persistent opposition from both ecclesiastical and civil 
authorities, since the first appearance of the Cathari or 
Albigenses, on the plains of Southern France. It 
assumed its place as a separate interest in history, when 
it could no longer be suppressed. Luther was one of the 
men whom God raises up to lead in such a crisis ; but so 
far from the Reformation being created by him, it had 
long ago been proclaimed in England, and though there 
suppressed, was silently biding a more favorable time, it 
had already run a course of more than a hundred years 
in Bohemia, and opened simultaneously its career in 
Switzerland and France. 

The bearing of this new period is the progress of the 
Gospel towards perfect freedom. The end at which it 
aims is that state of things, in which a freely published 
and preached Gospel shall address every man in his own 
language. Far from being completed, the warfare is 
still going on. But the Reformation crisis was that in 
which the Gospel burst the fetters of Mediaeval bondage, 
and stood forth in its own character before the world, 
with a power which proved successful in maintaining 
itself. Henceforward the history of western Christianity 
is divided into different channels : and yet there are cer- 
tain common epochs, which like broad bars, run across 
them all. 

The first of those epochs occurs in the year 1530, 
when the Theology of the Reformation first received a 
systematic shape, and the construction and conflict of 
confessions began. 

The next occurs in and about 1648, when the period 
of confessions came to an end: and Protestant nations 
on the European Continent secured the recognition of 
their independence. 

A third is marked by the outbreak of the French 
Revolution, a movement which had as much to do with 
religion as with politics. 

And a fourth may perhaps be found in the Vatican 
Council of 1870, the effects of which I believe are 
destined to be greater than have yet appeared. 



154 

I. 1517—1530. 

Of the Reformation the fundamental doctrine was 
justification by faith in the Lord Jesns Christ, and that 
from which it revolted was justification by any other 
wa}^ : and the ground on which the Reformers took their 
stand was that the Scriptures are the only sufficient rule 
of faith and practice. By the greatly enlarged publica- 
tion of the Scriptures many persons were prepared intel- 
ligently to take that step, as soon as a trusty leader 
appeared. 

The period, brief as it is, consists of different stages. 

1. Luther's attack upon indulgences, and controversy 
on that topic, as a faithful subject of the Pope, conducted 
by public addresses, epistles and oral debates. 

2. Denial of the absolute power of the Pope, leading, 
in course of controversy, to discussion of ihe whole 
structure of the Papacy, issuing in Luther's rejection of 
Papal allegiance, and appeal to a general council : and 
his defense at the Diet of Worms. 

3. A third stage was marked by attempts to repress 
the Reformation by action of civil and ecclesiastical 
courts; and on the side of the Reformers, to defend it 
by clear statements of faith, as sustained by scrip- 
ture, and by careful instruction of the public in the 
nature of the case; issuing in the great Diet at Augs- 
burg, and the confession presented there ; and at the 
same time, the publication of the confessions drawn up 
by Zwingle and Oecolampadius for Switzerland ; the 
earliest generally accepted confessions of the Protestant 
churches. 

1. In 1516, while Luther was making his incipient 
attacks upon the doctrine of justification by good works, 
TJlrich Zwingle, at Einsiedeln in Switzerland, was 
preaching against the worship of the Virgin Mary. And 
in 1518 he dealt with Samson the vender of indulgences, 
in that country, as Luther with Tetzel, in Germany. In 
France, Briconnet, bishop of Meaux, had already organ- 
ized a reformed congregation of 300 members. But 
Luther was peculiarly constituted and prepared to be the 
principal leader in that juncture. Certain external cir- 
cumstances favored him. Staupitz, vicar general of the 



155 

Augustinian order for Germany, was a man of kindred 
faith, and longer Christian experience, and was to Luther 
an invaluable adviser. Another staunch friend 

was the Elector Frederic of Saxony, whose sub- 
ject he was, Thus encouraged and protected, reforma- 
tion work had been going on in the University of Wit- 
tenberg, under Luther's instructions, before the attack 
upon indulgences brought him before the general public. 

Copies of the Theses against indulgences were put in 
circulation, and rapidly and far dispersed. Luther 
himself sent one to the Pope. It was reasonable to think 
that Leo, would not justify such abuse of his own divinely 
conferred prerogative. Multitudes were fully prepared to 
welcome that declaration. What it expressed, they had 
alreadv been thinking, and with its encouragement, now 
felt free to say. 

Luther went on with his work. In the month of 
November, he defended the doctrine of the Theses in a 
Latin disputation for the learned, as well as in a vernacular 
discourse, for the general public. Tetzel responded. 
And Prierias, a high official of the Papal court, sustained 
the cause uf indulgences, on the ground of the infallible 
authority and absolute power of the pope. Luther, in 
reply, recognized no authority as infallible, save that of 
the Holy Scriptures. A new step was thus taken in 
the controversy. 

2. The Dominican monks concerned in the indulgence 
business were the principal parties in the first step. The 
Papal court might have disowned and reproved their con- 
duct. But now the whole structure of the Papacy was 
assailed. 

Luther was summoned to appear in Rome August 7, 
1518. By intercession of the Elector Frederic, an exami- 
nation at Augsburg was substituted, which took place 
in October of the same year. Luther appeared there. 
Cajetan, the Papal Legate, demanded of him a full re- 
cantation, without any discussion. To that he refused to 
submit, and appealed to the Pope, when the Pope should 
be better informed of the case- But on the 9th of Nov., 
a Papal Bull was issued which assumed for the Pope the 
whole responsibility for indulgences. Luther condemned 
by the Pope, appealed to a general council. 



156 

Some of the church authorities now became alarmed, 
and attempted to stay the controversy. Luther, when 
appealed to, promised to observe silence on the subject, 
if his adversaries would do so likewise. He also wrote 
to the Pope expressing his ecclesiastical submission, aud 
exalting the Romish see above all except Christ, But 
the controversy could not stop. Dr. Eck of Ingoldstadt 
continued to pursue it, in his writings, on the Papal side. 
Between him and Carolstadt, one of Luther's fellow pro- 
fessors, a disputation took place, which lasled several 
days, before a large assembly. By action of his oppo- 
nents, the Reformer was constrained to self-defence. 

It was now that Philip Melancthon entered the field 
with his treatise, Defensio contra Eckium. 

A papal Bull was issued, June 15, 1520, condemning 
41 propositions of Luther's, and commanding him to 
confess his faults within sixty days. In case he failed to 
do so, excommunication was threatened, and any magis- 
trate, who could lay hold upon him was charged to arrest 
and send him to Rome. He replied with a treatise on 
christian freedom. In July he published his appeal to the 
German nobles to enlist them in the cause of the Refor- 
mation. 

Seeing that now, with the light he had attained, and 
the attitude he had been constrained to assume, he could 
no longer acknowledge allegiance to Rome, he determ- 
ined upon a public declaration to that effect, Accord- 
ingly, on the 10th of December, 1520, after notice given, 
he publicly burned the Papal bull issued against him, 
and with it the Canon Law, and certain Decretals of the 
Popes. This was Luther's Declaration of Independence, 
which he also abundantly maintained with his pen. 

From Dec. 10, 1520 the Reformation stands by itself 
a separate interest in the church. 

3. The truths proclaimed by the Reformers of Saxony 
and Switzerland were readily recognized where the good 
seed had been sown by Wycliff and his followers; and 
by the longsufferiug church of the United Brethren in 
Moravia and Bohemia, who hailed the reformation with 
rejoicing, and sent a delegation to Luther, to express 
their frateanal sympathy and approval. They have sub- 



157 

sequent! y frequent interviews with him. At first, they 
were not entirely in accord, because of the stricter Bohe- 
mian 1 discipline, on one hand, and Luther's severer defini- 
tion of doctrine, on the other. In a few years that ditri- 
culty was removed, and in 1542, Luther gave their dele- 
gates his hand as a pledge of perpetual friendship. 
In England, the monarch was still the firm defender of 
the Romish faith ; but the executions under his reign, 
for conscience sake, were enough to prove that among bis 
people there was a sympathy with the evangelical cause. 

An important element in the course of events is the 
attitude towards the Reformation assumed by the secular 
powers, and the condition in which they then were to 
favor or resist it. The emperor Maximilian died in 
January 1519, and in July of the same year, his grand- 
son Charles I. of Spain was elected to succeed him, and 
thereby became Charles V. of the Empire. 

Accordingly, in the year 1520, when Luther threw off 
the Papal yoke, the government of Europe was chiefly 
in the hands of three men, Henry VIII. of England, 
Francis I. of France, and Charles V., who now held a 
larger dominion than had ever, in Europe, been ruled by 
one man, Spain, Naples and other parts in Italy, Sicily 
and other important islands in the Mediterranean, the 
the Netherlands, the German Empire with which were 
now connected the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, 
and the hereditary estates of the house of Hapsburg, 
and all the lands discovered by Spanish navigators and 
explorers on both continents of America and the West 
Indies. The eastern portion of his European estates he 
conceded to his brother Ferdinand. 

All three of these great monarchs were staunch sup- 
porters of the Romish Church, and within their respec- 
tive dominions prohibited the reformation, and persecuted 
its adherents, Henry VIII., renewing the severities 
against the people called Lollards of England, and writ- 
ing against Luther, Francis I., by his concordat with the 
Pope, and burning of Huguenots, and Charles V., as 
inheriting the Spanish championship of Papal Catholic- 
ism, patronage of the w T orst type of the inquisition, and 
the command of armies which were the propagandists 
of Romanism over the world. 



158 

Outside of these monarchies to the east, the Ottoman 
Turks had reached the summit of their success under 
the reign of Suleyman, called the magnificent, who was 
then on the throne. Their empire bordered on that of 
Charles V., and their armies more than once penetrated 
far into the countries over which his brother ruled. 
Although they knew it not, those followers of the false 
Prophet exerted no little inflence in helping forward the 
Christian Reformation. It was a time of great 
monarchs, everyone of whom was an enemy of evangeli- 
cal religion, and on several occasions the three of christ- 
ian name banded themselves together with the Pope to 
destroy it. In no period of history are the Providential 
causes which defeated an overwhelmingly powerful party, 
and protected from step to step, and ultimately gave 
victory to the feebler, more wonderful and instructive. 
The compact of the King of England and the Emperor, 
the treaties of the Emperor, the King of France and the 
Pope, the ostentatious convention on the Field of the 
Cloth of Gold, proved to be only bubbles compared with 
the simple pen-work of two or three ministers of the 
gospel. 

The first assembly of the German States, after the 
accession of Charles V., was summoned to meet at 
Worms, Jan. 6th, 1521. It actually met three months 
later, attended by an unusual number of princes and 
nobles, lay and ecclesiastic, all desirous of presenting 
themselves before the young Emperor in a style as impres- 
sive a3 they could command. The Diet was one of great 
interest, as touching the policy of the new govenment 
in general, but the question of most importance was that 
of the Reformation. 

Aleander, the Papal legate, called upon the secular 
arm to execute the recent Bull of excommunication 
against Luther. The Diet, at the instance of Frederick 
of Saxony, refused to proceed against him, without giv- 
ing him a hearing. On receiving a pledge of protection 
from the Emperor, Luther went to Worms : and on the 
17th and 18th of April, stood before the Diet. His 
defence on that occasion, conducted with great learning 
and prudence, had a most favorable effect upon his cause. 



159 

Yet the majority decided against him : and the result of 
the deliberations, as far as he was concerned, was an 
edict, condemning his doctrines, and ordering the civil 
authorities to arrest him, as soon as the time ot his safe 
conduct had expired, and bring him to punishment. It 
also enjoined the princes of Germany to suppress his 
adherents, and confiscate their property. His works were 
to be destroyed. And any one acting contrary to the 
spirit of that decree was to be laid under bau of the 
empire. 

4. The edict of Worms was issued on the 26th of May. 
But Luther, whom it ordered to be arrested as scon as he 
arrived at Wittenberg, did not succeed in reaching home, 
on that occasion. As he was proceeding on his journey 
through a lonely place, a band of horsemen armed set 
upon him, overpowered his few attendants, seized him, 
threw over his monkish costume the cloak of a knight, 
constrained him to mount a led horse, and dashed off 
with him into the deoths of the Thurin^ian forest. For 

L CD 

ten months Luther was lost to the eye of the public. 
And those who wished his death learned what a commo- 
tion would have been produced had the sentence passed 
upon him been actually executed. He was concealed by 
friends in the castle of the Wartburg, and spent his 
time in study and writing. There the greater part, if 
not the whole of his translation of the New Testament 
was made. 

Meanwhile the edict against him and his fellow- 
reformers was not put in execution anywhere in Ger- 
many, except under the rule of the Elector of Branden- 
burg, the Duke of Bavaria and the Duke of Saxony, and 
some of the ecclesiastical princes, who by their excep- 
tional severity intensified the interest in the Reformation 
cause. The Emperor was prevented from taking any 
part in it by the war, in which he was immediately 
involved with France : and his brother Ferdinand was 
entirely occupied with the cares of defense against the 
Turk. 

At Wittenberg under the leadership of Melancthon, 
the structure of the new church order was carried for- 
ward. The first systematic exposition of Lutheran doc- 



160 

trine was made in Melancthon's u Loci communes Reriim 
Theologicarum" published during Luther's residence in 
the Wartburg. 

But a party arose at Wittenberg, headed by Professor 
Bodenstein, called of Carlstadt, which carried the new 
liberty to a pernicious extreme. Disorders were created, 
which the mild Melancthon was unable to reduce. 
Unexpected by all, Luther again appeared among them 
(March 1522). By his prompt regulative power, his 
preaching and personal presence, people were won back 
to a peaceable prosecution of church work in the orderly 
unfolding and practical effect of the Holy Scriptures. 
His translation of the New Testament was published the 
same year. Two years afterwards the whole Bible was 
presented to the public in the German language, by ren- 
dering directly from the Greek and Hebrew. 

Disorders, provoked by long continued oppression, and 
conducted by injudicious men, broke out about that time, 
especially an insurrection in Southern Germany, called 
Peasant's war. At the battle of Frankenhausen, in 
1525, its strength was broken by an overwhelming Catho- 
lic force. 

From 1521 to 1530, the Reformation in Germany 
having assumed a separate ground, but without a com- 
plete statement of its principles, was involved in contro- 
versies on .every side. It still looked for reconciliation 
with the Catholic Church, through action of a council. 
And, with a view to that, various were the conventions 
held for statement of doctrine and of grievances. 
The Emperor Maximilian had drawn up a list of ten 
grounds of complaint in Germany against Rome. These, 
afterwards increased to one hundred, were presented to 
the Diet of Worms, and under the name of the Centum 
Gravamina, went to justify the cause of the Reformation 
w T ith many, who otherwise would have taken no interest 
in it. 

Leo X. died on the 1st of December, 1521, and was 
succeeded by Hadrian VI., a pious man, who recognized 
the existence of evils in the church, and promised to 
remove them, while he demanded the execution of the 
Edict against the heresy of Luther. He died Sept. 14, 



161 

1523. Clement VII. also made promise of satisfying the 
complaints of Germany, provided the Edict were put in 
execution. A Diet was held at Nuremberg in 1522-3 and 
another in 1524. At the first, the legate of Hadrian 
made that demand, at the second the legate of Clement. 
But the Emperor, in the existing condition of his affairs 
could not undertake it, and most of the German states 
were opposed to it. 

Frederick the wise died May 5, 1525. His brother 
John, a sincere christian and friend of Luther, came into 
his place, and consistently sustained the cause. Several 
important additions were made to the adherents of the 
Reformation about that date, of whom the most 
important were the Landgrave of Hesse, and Albert of 
Brandenburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, 
who in 1525, took his place as Duke of Prussia, and with 
his people and their bishops joined the Reformation. 

Another Diet in reference to the subject was held at 
Dessau in July 1525, where the the purpose of the 
Romanists appeared so threatening that the Reforming 
princes and states entered into a league for their com- 
mon defence. It was formed at Torgau in May follow- 
ing. The war between France and Spain had ended in 
the defeat of the former, and capture of Francis I. at the 
battle of Pavia, 1525. In the treaty, whereby he was 
liberated, hostility to the Reformation was one of the 
conditions. That Treaty was made January 1526. The 
league of Torgau was only a prudent precaution. Yet 
ere it had occasion to operate, Providence interposed in 
a more effective manner. A new war arose, in which 
Francis I. and the Italian nobles, with the Pope at their 
head, arrayed themselves against the Emperor in the 
Holy League of Cognac, formed May 22, 1526. An 
invasion of the Turks alarmed the Empire and Hungary 
on the east, where the disastrous battle of Mohacs was 
fought, and Louis king of Hungary and Bohemia was 
slain, August 29, 1526. In May of next year, an impe- 
rial army took Rome by storm, and for several months 
the Pope was a prisoner, in the hands of Charles V. 

Protection was thus, for about three years, afforded 
to the reformers, without any extraordinary effort on 



162 

their part. They availed themselves of the favorable 
opportunity to put into fitting order the ecclesiastical 
institutions of their respective countries. Leaders in 
that work were Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and the 
Elector John of Saxony. The schools were put in a 
state of efficiency, and the University of Wittenberg was 
at the height of its prosperity. That of Marburg, in 
liesse, was founded in 1527. 

By 1529 the Reformation was already established in 
several states of Germany. A Diet, which met in Spires 
in that year, ordered that the Edict of Worms should be 
enforced, wherever the Reformation was not sanctioned 
by law. Against that act six Princes and fourteen cities 
presented a protest, Api;il 19th, 1529. Hence the name 
Protestant came to be applied to all who agreed in carry- 
ing forward the reformation then in hand. 

The Emperor, again successful in war, concluded a 
treaty with the Pope at Barcelona, June 29, 1529 and 
with France, the Peace of Cambray, August 5, of the 
same year; and in Februarj 7- following was crowned 
Emperor, and King of Lombardy. He had summoned 
a Diet to meet at Augsburg, in which the religious dis- 
sensions of Germany were to be finally disposed of. 
Protestants felt that they must be prepared with a com- 
plete, precise and summary statement of their doctrines. 
In compliance with that exigency, the articles of Torgau 
were drawn up by Luther, Melancthon, Jonas and Bugen- 
hagen. Attempts were made to unite the Lutheran and 
Reformed of Switzerland in confession of doctrine, 
which proved ineffectual, from difference of belief, chiefly 
touching the Lord's supper. 

The Elector of Saxony took with him to Augsburg 
Melancthon and three other eminent theologians. Luther 
could not safely leave the protection of Saxony." While 
waiting at Augsburg for the arrival of the Emperor, 
Melancthon made good use of the time in composing a 
more complete confession, which was the one read before 
the Diet, on the 25th of June 1530. A confutation was 
prepared by Dr. Eck, and read on the 3rd of August. 
An apology for the confession in reply to Eck was also 
written by Melancthon, and subsequently published. A 



163 

committee was also appointed to negotiate a reconcilia- 
tion between the parties. But nothing came of it. 

Four free cities, Constance, Strasburg, Memmin- 
gen and Lin dan, presented a separate confession, which 
was called the Tetrapolitan. The Reformed of Switzer- 
land had also a confession prepared for that occasion, 
but as they did not belong to the Empire, it was not 
called for. 

The final decree of the Diet granted to Protestants 
until April 15, 1531, for consideration, and threatened 
violence, if they did not submit by that time. 

5. In Switzerland the progress of Reformation was 
more rapid than in Germany, but completeness of doc- 
trinal statement was not attained so soon. In Basil the 
sentiment produced by the general council seems to have 
retained its hold upon some leading minds, through the 
rest of the 15th century. In the first years of the 16th 
we find some of the professors and students in the Uni- 
versity earnestly enlisted in the cause of ecclesiastical 
reform ; among whom Thomas Wyttenbach was distin- 
guished as early as 1505. Capito, Hedio, Erasmus, and 
others of like spirit, were students, teachers or residents 
there prior to 1517. Their attitude, in those days, was 
the preliminary one, in which men expected the church 
to reform itself by means of its own authorities ; and was 
comparatively safe. Some of them never went further. 

From Wyttenbach, Ulrich Zwingle received his first 
theological direction. Ten years of a quiet pastorate in 
the heart of the Alps, at G-larus, during which time he 
made himself well acquainted with the Greek New Tes- 
tament, wrought full conviction in his heart that the 
Scriptures are the sole and sufficient standard of religion. 
In 1516, he was induced to reside as priest and preacher 
at Einsiedeln, where he began to encounter some of the 
prevailing errors. Einsiedeln was the seat of a favorite 
shrine of the Virgin Mary. Multitudes of pilgrims 
flocked there to pay their devotions. Zwingle was moved 
with compassion for them, and preached against the pop- 
ular delusion. Christ, he told them, alone can save from 
sin; and his atonement satisfies for all believers in all 
places alike. Iu 1518 he opposed the sale of indulgences 



164 

in Switzerland, and had the satisfaction of seeing that 
abuse withdrawn. The same year he was elected preach- 
er in the great church of Zurich where in order to pro- 
mote the knowledge of Scripture among the people, lie 
adopted the method of explaining certain books of the 
Xew Testament in regular course. The method proved 
attractive, and large congregations attended his preach- 
ing. The excitement about Luther at that date, caused 
Zwingle to be also suspected of heresy. He did not, 
however, enter the polemical arena of the Reformation 
until 1522, when his treatise on the obligation of fasting 
appeared. By that time, several other Swiss preachers 
were pursuing a similar course. In May of that year, 
the Bishop of Constance issued a pastoral letter to warn 
all against innovation, and the Diet of Lucerne forbade 
preaching likely to produce disquiet. A brisk contro- 
versy ensued, but lasted inly a few years before Zurich 
and several other cantons took their stand clearly and 
fully for the Reformation, as taught by their own preach- 
ers. A conference between the reformers and the Rom- 
ish theologians was invited by the council of Zurich, and 
took place in January 1523. On that occasion, the coun- 
cil was so well pleased with Zwingle's defence of the 
doctrines he preached, that they charged him to persevere 
in his course, and recommended their other preachers 
to follow his example. All excesses were wisely held in 
check, and the work progressed quietly, but steadi 1 ^. 
One after another, all object} and usages of superstition 
disappeared ; " the monasteries were suppressed, and 
changed into schools and almshouse." The change in 
public worship was completed by the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper in its original simplicity, on the 13th of 
April, 1525, in the great minister of Zurich. 

Meanwhile several other cantons were pursuing a 
similar course, at one stage and another, and some were 
hesitating. A disputation held at Berne in January 
1528, decided the government of that canton to accept 
the Reformation ; and other cantons, which had been 
wavering, followed that example. 

The confederation was forthwith divided, the northern 
and western cantons being chiefly Protestant, and those 



. 165 

on the eastern and southern side remaining attached to 
the Catholic religion. Each group sought their respect- 
ive alliances, the latter with Austria, and the former with 
Strasburg and IIes«e, carrying the Reformed alliance 
down the Rhine. At that juncture occurred the Diet of 
Augsburg. Zwingle was not present at that assembly, 
but prepared about that time his R'ttio Fidel, for the 
Emperor, and his Expositio Fide? Ch.rhtkw.ae, for the King 
of France. And (Eeolampadius, who was present, drew 
up that confession, which, although not read before the 
Diet, was afterwards the basis of the first Basil Confes- 
sion. 

The great point of difference between the Saxon and 
Helvetic Reformers was in the doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper. Luther taught that the real body of 
Christ is present with the Sacramental bread, but does 
not take its place. Zwingle denied that to he the mean- 
ing of Scripture, and interpreted the Lord's words as 
instituting a memorial ordinance, in which his people, in 
partaking of bread and wine, should apprehend his body 
and his blood, which those signified, as actually broken 
and shed for them, and thereby receive through faith, the 
real blessing of the Lord's Sacrifice. 

The Tetrapolitan Reformers stood on a different 
ground from both, and mediate between the two; but 
nearer to the Lutheran side, to which they, not long 
afterwards, passed over, by the Wittenberg concord of 
1536. Of that connection the leading theologian was 
Martin Bucer. 

In the year succeeding the Diet of Augsburg the 
Catholic cantons of Switzerland made war on Zurich, 
and a battle was fought at Cappel, Oct. 11, 1531, in which 
the forces of Zurich were defeated, and Zwingle, who had 
gone out to attend to the wounded and dying, was slain. 
The death of (Eeolampadius followed soon after, Nov. 
23, of the same year. 

Among the men of that time the most singly and 
directly scriptural, and the most fully emancipated thereby 
from long prevailing superstition, was Ulrich Zwingle. 



a 



166 

II. 1530-1648. 

From the date of the Confession of Augsburg, until 
the Peace of Westphalia, the history of the church in 

Germany consists of three periods: one, in which the 
parties labored in attempts to convince each other, or so 
to frame a creed that they might agree upon it ; the sec- 
ond was a period of compromise, commencing with the 
Religious Peace of Augsburg, in 1555, and extending to 
1618 ; and the third, beginning with the latter date, was 
one of open war, which did not come to an end, until 
after the lapse of thirty years. 

In view of the final decree of Augsburg, the Protest- 
ants of Germany, having no intention to submit, began 
to prepare for the encounter of force. The league" of 
Smaleald was formed March 29,1531, and soon" after- 
wards strengthened by alliance with Bavaria, and with 
the king of France, both of whom entered into that 
relation for political reasons. More cordial was the alli- 
ance with Denmark. The threat of Augsburg came to 
nothing. Next year, (July 23, 1532) the Religious Peace 
of Nuremberg provided that religious matters should 
remain as they were until settled by a council or a new 
Diet. 

The Augsburg confession proclaimed the doctrines 
of the Lutheran church, and prepared the way for large 
addition to the number of its adherents. It became a 
standard of Lutheran doctrine, and gave union and har- 
mony to the whole Lutheran Reformation ; but it also 
determined the difference between that communion and 
the Reformed ; the latter name being applied to all who, 
in various countries, coincided with the views of the 
Swiss Reformers. 

From the two centres, thus constituted in Electoral 
Saxony and Western Switzerland, the influences of 
Reformation spread rapidly in all directions. The Saxon 
form of doctrince was soon accepted in central and north- 
ern Germany, in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, har- 
monized with the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren and 
gained considerable numbers in Hungary. Several of 
the German States down the Rhine from Basil and fol- 
lowing that line northward between the centre of Ger- 



167 

many and the Netherlands, as far as the German sea, 
accepted Reformed doctrine. Such also became the 
creed of Protestants in the Netherlands, in France, in 
England, in Scotland, and of the Magyar population in 
Hungary. 

Though differing to some extent in doctrine, these 
two grand divisions of the Protestant connection sup- 
ported each other in their common defense against 
violence. 

The severity which Charles V., never felt himself in 
condition to exercise upon the Protestants of Germany, 
he exemplified in his hereditary estates in the Nether- 
lands. There had risen the school of Gerard, and there 
had flourished the evangelical agencies which proceeded 
from it. John Wessel of Gronningen anticipated almost 
every dodrine afterwards defended by Luther. That he 
died in peace, 1489, was due to the protection of the pious 
bishop of Utrecht, who also ought himself to be named 
among the forerunners of the Reformation. At first 
Lutheranism was accepted ; but soon exchanged for the 
Reformed doctrine, which has retained its ground. In 
the Netherlands was the first blood shed for the cause, 
in the martyrdom of Henry Yoes and John Esch al 
Brussels, July 1, 1523. From that date persecution con- 
tinued in those provinces through all the reign of Charles 
V. and with more terrible infatuation under his successor 
Philip II. 

Between 1532 and 1538, the Protestant cause was 
greatly strengthened by tho accession of Wiirtenberg of 
Pomerania, of the Count Palatine, the Princes of Anhalt, 
William of Nassau, and many free cities, as well as the 
kingdoms of Denmark (1536) and Norway, (1537). 
Meanwhile urgent and repeated application had been 
made by the Emperor to the pope to call the council, to 
which Protestants had appealed, and which was expected 
by many to bring about a satisfactory settlement of all 
differences. The Popes had deferred that action,. until 
the work, which it might have done in the beginning, was 
no longer practicable ; and until the Protestants no longer 
took much interestin it. A Bull was issued convokingthe 
council at Mantua. With a view to it, Luther drew up 



168 

a statement of his views, which was accepted by the Pro- 
testant League at Smalcald, in February 1537. It is 
know as the Smalcald articles. The council did not 
meet. 

July 10, 1588, the Holy League was formed at N~urem- 
bnrg for the purpose of sustaining the Imperial authori- 
ties in carrying the Edict of Augsburg into execution. 
War between the two parties seemed to be inevitable. 
But at that juncture the Turk again threatened the east- 
ern borders of the empire. Peace must be kept with 
the Protestants some time longer. Imperial negotiations 
with them, at Frankfort on the Main 1539, resulted in 
suspending all proceedings against them for eighteen 
months. 

After the termination of the Frankfort suspension, 
various other diets and conferences were held to settle 
the differences of opinion ; but without effect. The 
urgently demanded council at last assembled at Trent, 
Dec. 13, 1545. At that juncture, Luther died at 
Eisleben, the place of his birth, February 16, 1546. 
Very soon it became plain that the council would 
not answer the end for which it was called, that its 
purpose was not to conciliate but to condemn the 
Protestants. The emperor opened a conference atRatis- 
bon, Jan. 27, 1546. That also failed. And feeling n< w 
in condition to apply force, he undertook to make a 
reformation on his own terms, which Protestants were 
to be constrained to accept. They resisted ; but their 
confederation, called the Smalcald, conducted the war 
feebly, and were constrained to submit. At a Diet 
opened by the Emperor at Augsburg Sept. 1547, a com- 
promise between the Catholic and Protestant religions 
was agreed upon, as an Interim, or temporary measure, 
until the action of a proper council could be obtained. 
Though accepted by some of the Protestant princes, by 
the states and populations generally it was condemned. 
But .military force imposed it. In a few months, pure 
Protestantism was suppressed in Germany. The city of 
Magdeburg alone maintained it. 

That success of the Imperial arms was brought to a 
sudden termination. Maurice of Saxony who a few 



169 

years before had deserted the Protestant league, to join 
the Emperor, and was trusted with command of a large 

force, becoming disgusted with the service in which he 
was employed, and indignant at the Imperial despotism, 
suddenly turned from Magdeburg, which he had been 
sent to reduce, and directed his arms against his master. 
Charles lav sick at Inspruck, and learned of his danger 
only in time to escape capture by a rapid flight. He was 
constrained (Aug. 2d, 1552) to sign a treaty granting 
freedom of religion to the Protestant states, until 
a new council could be convened. Maurice also 
secured the co-operation of the King of France, who 
prosecuted the war by invading the Emperor's posses- 
sions in the Netherlands. It was at some sacrifice that 
Charles secured a not dishonorable peace with his ene- 
mies on all sides. The act of settlement for Germany was 
concluded at the Diet of Augsburg Sept. 25, 1555, in 
granting to the Protestant religion, without limitation of 
time, a recognized place, and to the German states, free- 
dom of choice between the two religions. One month 
later, Charles V. abdicated the throne of the Netherlands. 
and a few weeks afterwards that of Spain with all its 
dependencies, in favor of his son Philip. The crown of 
the empire lie retained six months longer. But when 
he had transferred all his claims of allegiance from Ger- 
many to his brotherFerdinand, the greatest monarch of his 
age withdrew from public life, and sunk himself in a monas- 
tery. Although courtesy, as long as he lived, still made 
use of his august name, he never again appeared in the 
world. 

2. Freedom of religious profession was allowed, by the 
Peace of Ausgburg, only to governments. The people 
were expected to follow the religion selected for them by 
their rulers, although they w r ere free to remove to a state 
where that of their choice was established. It was further 
fettered by a stipulation that every prince prelate, passing 
over to the cause of Protestantism, should lose, with his 
ecclesiastical prerogatives, also his temporal power and 
dominion. But for this ecclesiastical reservation, it is 
thought that almost all Germany would have become 
Protestant. The emperors Ferdinand I. and Maximilian 
II. respected the peace, and made honorable efforts to 



170 

hold the balance fairly between the two parties. And 
several additions were made to the number of Protestant 
states. 

After the death of Luther, the divisions of opinion, 
which had existed before, among the theologians of his 
connection greatly increased. Melancthon had modified 
their theology on some points, such as the agency of 
man in conversion, and the Lord's Supper. In the for- 
mer, though he denied all merit to man, yet he held to a 
certain co-operation of human free will ; and respecting 
the latter he took a middle ground between the Calvin- 
istic and the Lutheran. The University of Wittenberg 
adopted his views. Subsequently that of Jena was 
founded in the interest of strict Lutheranism. Various 
other differences arose, which distracted theological 
opinion, for several years. At last a convention met at 
Bergen, near Magdeburg, 1577. and agreed upon a form 
of Concord, which seemed to give general satisfaction. 
The Formula Concordke constitutes the final symbol of 
the Lutheran church. 

It was in the beginning of this period that a new enemy 
of the Protestant cause began to make itself felt in the 
controversy. ' The Jesuit order received Papal sanction 
in 1540, and in 1556 Ignatius Loyola died, after having 
completed his system, and seen it fully established in 
practice. Loyola was a Spanish soldier, who being dis- 
abled for military service by wounds, turned his atten- 
tion to the construction of a new monastic order for the 
specific purpose of defending the Papal cause. His 
plans were gradually matured by the thinking of many 
years and assistance of colleagues, among whora the first 
were Peter Faber and Francis Xavier. 

The methods by which the order, which called itself 
the society of Jesus, sought to obtain power, w T as by 
popular preaching, by obtaining the place of confessors 
to Princes and persons of high rank and standing in 
royal courts, by controling the education of the young, 
and establishing missions to operate upon the rulers of 
heathen countries. The vows of a professed Jesuit are 
those of chasity, poverty, obedience, and of implicit com- 
pliance with a command of the Pope, to go to any place 



171 

in the world where he may send them. They are not 
under obligation of seclusion from the world, to practice 
the ordinary penances and macerations of the body. 
Not for asceticism, but for work is the order constituted. 
The selection of their men is careful, their education 
strict, and their probation searching. The first stage is 
that of novices on trial, second that of scholastics pursuing 
the education appointed them ; third, that of coadjutors 
temporal and spiritual, of whom the former are not yet 
priests, but useful to the cause in secular occupations, 
and the other constitute the class from whom are chosen 
the highest, or fourth grade, who are also of two classes, 
the professed of three vows and the professed of four. 
Their government recognizes successive ranks of sub- 
ordination, and superiors, with mutual espionage, and 
the supreme authority is vested in a general, elected by 
the professed members, and who serves for life. 

In proportion as that new order increased in Ger- 
many, so did Catholic violations of the Religious Peace. 
First they succeeded in suppressing Protestantism in Bava- 
ria, and other states were won back to the Catholic con- 
nection. The Emperor Rudolph II. (1576-1612) sustained 
the re-action with all the weight of his authority, and in 
some cases with force. As the power of choosing the 
state religion belonged only to the Princes, little regard 
was paid to the wishes of the people. Success emboldened 
aggression. Threats of entire suppression of the Prot- 
estant cause began to be heard, and in some quarters 
steps were actually taken to that end. 

A change had also taken place in the tone of the 
Catholic church, as well as of the Papacy, respecting the 
reformation needed within their bounds. Clement VII. 
died in 1534. His successor, Paul III., deluded the reform- 
ing party for many years with the promise of calling a 
council, which should regulate the affairs of the church 
by proper authority. After many evasions, he finally 
called a council, which met at Trent, Dec. 13, 1545. In 
1547, he removed it to Bologna, and soon after caused it 
to be adjourned. From the first, the Protestants per- 
ceived that it was to be a mere Papal agency, and 
declined taking any part in it. In Nov. 1549, Paul III. 



172 

died. Julius III., at the instance of Charles V., re- 
opened the council, May 1st, 1551, but closed it in April 
1552. After his death in 1555, Marcel hi 8 reigned only 
23 days; and was followed by Paul IV., who, having 
been long at the head of the Inquisition in Rome, entered 
upon his pontificate in the spirit of stern hostility to all 
nieasuros of reform, and with a determination to carry to 
the utmost possible extreme the temporal and spiritual 
supremacy of the Papal office. During all his reign 
(1555 — 1559) the council was not called. By the next 
Pope, Pius IV., it was re-assembled January 18, 1562, 
and was more numerously attended than before, but its 
acts were of less importance : and neither then nor 
before did it effect anything to meet the demand which 
had first brought it together. It however clearly defined 
the position of Romanism as over against that of the 
Protestants ; and made manifest the fact that reconcilia- 
tion was impracticable. It was finally dissolved on the 
4th of December, 1563. In all, its sessions had covered 
about four years and seven months. Indulgences, and 
all the doctrines out of which they spring, and by which 
they are justified, were fully sustained by the council, 
and the practice of dispensing them defended, while the 
recklessness which had brought the sale of them into 
disrepute was censured. They were to be dispensed, not 
for gain, but for piety. The works of xhe council of 
Trent appear in the form of canons, and a catechism for 
the instruction of priests. And after its final adjourn- 
ment, Pius IV. issued a profession of faith, in which he 
summed up the results of what it had clone, and added 
to the Nicene creed a series of articles, which he pro- 
nounced part of the true and Catholic faith, out of which 
no one can be saved. 

From the close of the council of Trent, the demand 
for reform in the Romish church fell into disrepute, and 
the reaction againstit continued togain strength, until the 
very name of reformation was held equivalent to heresy. 
For that change the Catholic church is indebted chiefly 
to the Council of Trent, and the Jesuit Order, which at 
the death of its founder in 1556, consisted of one thous- 
and active agents, and one hundred religious houses, 



I 6 



divided into twelve provinces, reaching to the East 
Indies, on one side, and to Brazil, on the other. ft soon 
became a mighty engine, no less powerful among the 
politics of princes, than in the propaganda of Romanism. 

Within the same period, the different churches of the 
Reformed connection on the continent had also matured 
their doctrinal symbols. 

In 1535 and 1536, Geneva, sustained by the canton of 
Berne succeeded in wresting her independence from her 
Bishop and the Duke of Savoy, and in uniting with the 
Protestant confederation of Switzerland. Her reformers, 
Farel and Viret were in 1536, joined by Calvin, who had 
already published the first edition of his Institutes of 
Theology. For the strictness of their discipline they 
were all banished from the city. Farel subsequentlv 
labored in Xeuchatel, and Viret in Lausanne. Calvin 
was recalled in 1541 by the urgent entreaty of the people 
of Geneva, with the promise that they would accept the 
religious government which he proposed. Under the 
regulations thus established, Geneva became the head of 
the Helvetic Reformation, and the Seminary of Reformed 
doctrine. After the death of Calvin, May 27, 1564, that 
reputation and standing was maintained by Beza and 
other eminent scholars and divines. 

In France the Reformed, under severe repression and 
sometimes the most eruel persecution, continued to 
increase in number; and in 15o9 drew up their confes- 
sion consistent with the doctrines taught in Geneva. 
Their cause was sustained by the prince of Conde, the 
admiral Coligny, and the Queen of Navarre, and later, 
by her daughter, and then by her grandson, Henry, King 
of Navarre. At the head of the Catholic party stood the 
ducal house of Loraine, and the royal family of France, 
led by the policy of Catherine de Medici, wife of Henry 
II., and mother of the three next successive Kings. After 
repeated wars, a marriage of the young King of Navarre 
and the sister of King Charles IX., was negotiated as a 
means of securing peace. Great numbers of Protestants 
assembled in Paris to honor the nuptials of their leader. 
According to arrangements previously concerted, chiefly 
by the Queen Mother, they were attacked on the night 



174 

of the 24th of Aug. J572, and murdered to the number 
of many thousands. The orders were extended to the 
provinces, where they were also obeyed. But so far 
from being exterminated, the Reformed of France ral- 
lied around the King of Navarre, and carried him in 
victory to the walls of Paris, when he succeeded to the 
throne of France, 1589, and in the hope of uniting both par- 
ties, deserted his friends by professing the creed of his 
enemies. He granted, however, to Protestants, equal 
rights with Catholics, by the edict of Nantes, 1598. His 
own family were subjected to Romish education, and 
the real liberties of Protestants did not long survive his 
death, which occurred by assassination in 1610. 

Among the Reformed of the Netherlands persecution 
begun in the execution of the first martyrs of Brussels in 
1523, was continued with varying severity through 
all the reign of Charles V.. and under his successor 
Philip II., intensified to a degree which was equally 
inhuman and insane, resulting in the reduction to pov- 
erty of a once wealthy dependency, and the complete 
alienation of its allegiance from the throne of Spain. In 
1579, the southern provinces submitted. But the north- 
ern declared their independence. In 1561 the Belgic 
confession was composed, presenting the same type of 
doctrine as that of Geneva. On that Platform the Re- 
publicans of the United Netherlands defended themselves 
against the forces of Spain, and after a long war, wrested 
from their enemy the peace of 1609. Then rose the 
controversy with Arminianisrn, leading to the Synod of 
Dort in 1618. Again the Provinces were involved in a 
war with Spain, beginning from 1621, in the course of 
which they were brought into relations with the Protes- 
tants of Germany. 

Among German Protestants several princes and 
states passed over from Lutheranism to the Reformed 
communion, such as the Duchy of Lippe, Hesse Cassel, 
and the Hanse city of Bremen. But of all German Re- 
formed States most emiuent was the Palatinate, which 
made that change under the Elector Frederick III. in 
1560. Three years afterwards, under the same Prince, the 
Heidelberg catechism was published, which soon became 



175 

the common standard of doctrine for the churches of that 
connection. 

A sense of the danger to which they were exposed 
by the machinations of Jesuits, and t lie spirit of 
persecution which was exhibiting itself more and more 
extensively, led the Protestant states of Germany to enter 
into another league for their mutual defence. Thus was 
formed the Evangelical Union, at Ahausen, in May, 1608. 
An opposing Catholic league was constituted in July of 
the next year, at Munich. At the head of the former 
was the Elector Frederick V. of the Palatinate, and of 
the latter, Maximilian of Bavaria. 

In Bohemia, the Reformers were the most numerous 
part of the population. But the religious Peace was of 
little benefit to them, because they were subjects of a 
Catholic German Prince, and dependent upon his strict- 
ness or liberality. Upon the death of the Emperor 
Matthias, who had been their King, the Bohemians 
resisted his successor on the Imperial throne, Ferdinand 
II., as being an intolerant Catholic, and offered their 
crown to Frederick V., electoral Prince of the Palatin- 
ate, and son-in-law of James I. of England. Ferdinand 
pursued his claim by war, and was supported by Spain 
and the Catholic league. Bohemia and the Palatinate, 
driven to self-defence, looked for support from the Evan- 
gelical Union, and from Engl ami. Thus opened in 1618 
a war which, though sometimes interrupted for a brief 
space, was not brought to a close until after the lapse of 
thirty years, and in the prosecution of which some of the 
finest portions of Germany were trodden into desolation. 

3. The aid expected by the Elector from England 
proved so feeble as to be deceitful. The cause of Fer- 
dinand w r as victorious (1620). Protestant worship was 
abolished in Bohemia. The same fate befell Austria. 
The lands of the Palatinate were seized by Spain and 
Maximilian of Bavaria. The Evangelical Union was 
dissolved, and the first act of the war terminated in ihe 
re-establishment of the Catholic religion everywhere by 
force. 

In 1625, an attempt was made by the Protestants of 
lower Saxony, under command of Christian IV., King 



176 

of Denmark, to resist that oppression. Tt nlro issued in 
defeat, before the imperal forces under Tilly and Wallen* 
stein. A treaty was concluded at Lubeck, May 12, 
1629. The long suspended Edict was put in execution, 
and nothing less was contemplated than extermination 
of the protestant cause. 

But the completeness of imperial success brought 
about its overthrow. Such a preponderance of the Aus- 
trian Spanish power kindled the jealousy, if not the rea- 
sonable fears of France. The Italian princes, including 
the Pope, from various motives of local politics, sympa- 
thized with France. An alliance was accordingly formed 
by those powers together with Sweden for the purpose 
of pursuing the war more vigorously, to put a check 
upon the dangerously overbalancing weight, of the Tlaps- 
burg dynasty. The new campaign opened June 24, 1630, 
in the arrival of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, as 
commander of the allied armies in Germany. By his 
prudence and energy he inspired the minds of Protestants 
witb new hopes, which were fully sustained by his mili- 
tary success. On the 7th of September 1631, he fought 
a great battle, in which he defeated Count Tilly, at 
Leipsic, and cleared his way into the heart of Germany. 
Early next year, he again defeated the imperial forces, 
at the passage of the Lech, where Count Tilly was slain. 
Continuing his victorious march southward he penetrated 
into Bavaria, breaking, as he advanced, the fetters, which 
the emperor had been so industriously rivetting upon his 
Protestant subjects. In another great battle at Liitzen, 
Nov. 6, 1632, he defeated the forces of Wallen stein. By 
these victories he removed the oppression which rested 
upon most of the German states, thereby enlarging his 
own resources, as he weakened those of his enemy. 
And, although he fell in the midst of victory, at Liitzen, 
the change he had effected upon the relative state of the 
belligerents gave an advantage to the cause he defended 
which was retained to the end. His policy was pursued 
by the Swedish minister Oxenstiern,andthe Swedish gene- 
rals Banier and Torstensen, and the Prince of Saxe- 
Weimer wrested repeated victory from the imperialist 
forces; while Spain, already reduced by her losses in the 



177 

Netherlands, was humiliated by the victories of the 
French generals, Conde, Turenne and others. It was a 
long conflict, in which the reverses were not all on one 
side, but which issued in such decided advantage to the 
Protestant cause as to constrain the Austrian-Spanish 
eneni} 7 to come to reasonable terms. The Thirty years 
war closed in the Peace of Westphalia, October 1648. 

By that Treaty, Sweden and some other Protestant 
states made a gain of territory, and only in Bavaria 
were the Catholics allowed to retain all the advantages 
they had conquered in the early part of the war, and the 
terrible oppression of Bohemia could not be undone; 
but the principal gain was in the establishment of equal- 
ity between Catholic and Protestant states, in all affairs 
of the empire. As Holland had been one of the mem- 
bers ot the alliance, the conditions of the treaty extended 
to both branches of the Protestant connection. 

Among the Confessions called forth during this long 
period of conflict the most important are, for the Lutheran 
church, Luther's two catechisms, Longer, and Shorter, 
the Augsburg Confession, the Apology for the Confes- 
sion, the Smalcald Articles and the Form of Concord; 
for the Keformed, the second Basil Confession, or first 
Plelvetic, Calvin's Institutes, though not a confession, 
yet having much to do with all the Reformed confessions 
which succeeded, Consensus Tigurinus, by which Ger- 
man Switzerland accepted Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper, the second Helvetic Confession, the Heidelberg 
Catechism, the Gallic Confession, the Belsric Confession, 
and the Confession and canons of Dort. And by the same 
date, the English church Articles had received their final 
form, and the work of the Westminster Assembly was 
complete. 



OUTLINES OF CHURCH HISTORY 



FOR THE USE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS 
IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN PRINCETON. 



BY 

JAMES C. MOFFAT, 

HELENA PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY. 



From the birth of Christ to A. D. 1648. 



PRINCETON: 

CHARLES S. ROBINSON, PRINTER. 

1875. 



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